*A. 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 
MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


SOME    HERETICS    OF 
YESTERDAY 


BY 

S.  E.  HERRICK,  D.  D. 

MINISTER  OF  MT.  VERNON  CHURCH,   BOSTON 


BOSTON 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

New  York:  11  East  Seventeenth  Street 


1885 


Copyright,  1884, 
BT  S.  E.  HERRICK. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge: 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  II.  0  Houghton  &  Go, 


OF    HONOR    AND    AFFECTION 

I  HAVE  WRITTEN  LAST, 
THAT  I  MIGHT   INSCRIBE    IT,  WITHOUT   HER  KNOWLEDGE, 

TO   THE   MOST  FAITHFUL 
AND    YET    MOST    KINDLY    OF    CRITICS, 

MY  WIFE, 

UNDER    WHOSE    PATIENT    SCRUTINY 

EVERY  PAGE   OF  MY  BOOK 

HAS   PASSED. 


PKEFACK 


LEST  some  reader  should  be  disappointed  in  the 
contents  of  the  present  volume,  let  me  briefly  say  by 
way  of  preface  that  no  new  facts  are  brought  to  light 
in  the  following  pages ;  they  are  old  stories  simply  re- 
told —  not  for  students  —  but  for  the  young  men  and 
women  of  the  Congregation  to  which  it  is  my  privilege 
to  minister,  and  whom  I  am  trying  to  train,  from  Sun- 
day to  Sunday,  in  the  Christian  graces  of  Faith,  Hope, 
and  Charity,  and  in  that  Kingdom  which  is  "  right- 
eousness and  peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost." 

The  several  chapters  were  prepared  from  week  to 
week  and  delivered  as  a  course  of  Sunday  Evening 
Lectures  during  the  last  winter,  with  no  thought  of 
publication  until  the  last  one  had  been  given.  Indeed 
such  a  purpose,  arising  at  an  earlier  day,  would  have 
suggested  a  preparation  so  protracted  and  thorough  as 
to  preclude  the  possibility  of  producing  them  at  inter- 
vals so  brief.  Nor  would  they  now  be  committed  to 
the  types  but  for  the  strenuous  entreaty  of  my  people. 

The  Luther  celebrations  of  last  autumn  turned  the 
minds  of  men  anew,  throughout  the  Christian  world, 


vi  PREFACE. 

to  that  great  revolt  against  traditionalism  and  author- 
ity which  we  call  the  Reformation.  To  show  that  the 
revolt  neither  began  nor  ended  with  Luther  —  if  in- 
deed it  can  be  said  to  be  finished  yet ;  to  follow  it  in 
its  gradual  development  in  principle  and  trace  it  in  its 
geographical  and  national  expansion ;  at  the  same  time 
to  exhibit  it  concretely  in  the  lives  of  its  leaders,  and 
so  to  bring  the  reader  into  a  personal  sympathy  with 
them  and  awaken  an  interest  in  personal  investigation ; 
is  the  object  which  I  have  endeavored  to  accomplish. 
And  yet,  I  should  not  be  content,  if  I  could  feel  that 
only  this  were  attained.  The  great  Protestants  of  the 
past  have  gained  comparatively  little  for  the  world,  if 
they  have  not  established  for  all  succeeding  ages  the 
indefectible  right  to  question  even  their  authority,  and 
the  perpetual  privilege  of  intellectual  readjustment. 
In  other  words,  a  traditional  Protestantism  has  no 
more  right  to  a  claim  of  infallibility  than  a  traditional 
ecclesiasticism. 

Every  age  that  the  world  has  seen  so  far  has  been 
prefatory ;  it  is  hardly  probable  that  the  present  age 
is  final.  The  five  centuries  from  the  birth  of  Tauler 
to  the  death  of  Wesley  (1290-1791)  are  unified  by  a 
visible  progress  of  religious  thought  and  of  spiritual 
life.  There  is  no  good  reason  for  supposing  that  the 
lines  along  which  that  progress  has  developed  have  yet 
found  their  termini.  It  may  be  said  of  these  "  Here- 
tics of  Yesterday,"  as  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  says  of  the  worthies  of  the  Ancient  Jewish 
Church:  "These  all  having  obtained  a  good  report 


PREFACE.  vu 

through  faith,  received  not  the  promise ;  God  having 
provided  some  better  thing  for  us,  that  they  without 
us  should  not  be  made  perfect."  Nor  shall  we  be  per- 
fected without  the  work  and  attainment,  the  broader 
light  and  clearer  knowledge,  of  the  coming  years. 

MT.  VERNON  CHURCH,  BOSTON,  July,  1884. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

I.  TATTLER  AND  THE  MYSTICS 1 

II.  WICLIF 23 

III.  Hcs 45 

IV.  SAVONAROLA 71 

V.  LATIMER 97 

VI.  CRANMER 127 

VII.  MELANCTHON 155 

VIII.  KNOX .  .  .  181 

IX.  CALVIN 207 

X.  COLIGNY 235 

XL  WILLIAM  BREWSTER 263 

XII.  WESLEY  289 


I. 

TAULER  AND  THE  MYSTICS. 
A.  D.  1290-1361. 

CURIOUS  it  is  to  observe  how  these  Common-sense  Philosophers,  men 
who  brag  chiefly  of  their  irrefragable  logic,  and  keep  watch  and  ward,  as 
if  this  were  their  special  trade,  against  'Mysticism,'  and  'Visionary  The- 
ories,' are  themselves  obliged  to  base  their  whole  system  on  Mysticism,  and 
a  Theory  ;  on  Faith,  in  short,  and  that  of  a  very  comprehensive  kind  ;  the 
Faith,  namely,  either  that  man's  Senses  are  themselves  Divine,  or  that 
they  afford  not  only  an  honest,  but  a  literal  representation  of  the  workings 
of  some  Divinity.  So  true  is  it  that  for  these  men  also,  all  knowledge  of 
the  visible  rests  on  belief  of  the  invisible  and  derives  its  first  meaning  and 
certainty  therefrom.  —  CARLYLE,  Essay  on  Novalis. 


SOME  HERETICS  OF  YESTERDAY. 


TAULER  AND  THE  MYSTICS. 
A.  D.  1290-1361. 

MAN'S  religion,  like  himself,  combines  the  seen  and 
temporal  with  the  unseen  and  eternal.  The  soul,  or 
spirit,  or  unseen  reality  of  religion,  is  something  en- 
tirely distinct  from  the  visible  form  in  which  it  is 
embodied.  The  two  may  exist  apart,  but  the  normal 
condition  is  that  of  combination  in  balance  and  har- 
mony and  mutual  helpfulness.  Religion  may  exist 
only  as  a  corpse  ;  and  it  may  exist  also  only  as  a  dis- 
embodied spirit.  There  may  be  only  the  visible  ap- 
pearance, the  phenomena  of  churches  and  dogmas  and 
sacraments  and  sermons,  without  any  interior  and 
spiritual  reality.  There  have  been,  as  we  know,  not 
only  individuals,  but  whole  communities  and  long  ages, 
in  which  this  has  been  the  case,  when  religion  has 
been  like  the  fair  shell  of  a  nut  in  which  the  kernel 
has  completely  decayed.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  may  be  religion  which  takes  on  little  or  no  vis- 
ible manifestation,  no  church,  no  human  ministry,  no 
formulated  creed,  no  sacraments,  nothing  save  the  spir- 
itual intercourse  between  man  and  his  God.  But  as 
in  the  human  constitution  body  and  soul  are  intended 


TAVLEH  AND   THE  MYSTICS. 

to  exert  a  mutual  influence,  each  working  healthfully 
and  helpfully  upon  the  other,  —the  body  giving  ut- 
terance and  expression  to  the  soul  and  carrying  out 
its  purposes  and  desires,  and  the  soul  animating  the 
body  and  informing  it  with  grace  and  beauty,  —  so 
also  is  the  intent  in  all  religion.     All  form  is  to  the 
end  of  spiritual  life  and  vigor,  and  spiritual  life  is 
in  order  to  outward  influence  and  fruitfulness.     But 
neither  in  man  nor  in  his  religion  are  the  twain  often 
found  in  perfect  balance.     The  one  or  the  other  is 
likely  to  preponderate,   and   in  both  cases   the  flesh 
tends  to  get  the  upper  hand  of   the   spirit,  and  to 
tyrannize  over  it.      Then  comes  the  necessity  for  a 
protest  and  a' reaction  to  restore  the  normal  relation; 
and  in  this  fact  lies  the  whole  meaning  of  Protestant- 
ism, in  whatever  age  it  appears  and  whatever  the  tem- 
porary form  it  takes.     Matthew  Arnold,  in  his  recent 
lecture  on  Emerson,  said  that  "  Mr.  Emerson's  great 
work  lay  in  this,  that  he  was  the  friend  and  aider  of 
those  who  would  live  in  the  spirit,"  which  is  but  an- 
other way  of  saying  that  Mr.  Emerson  was  a  mystic. 
For  mysticism  is  not  an  ism,  but  an  effort.     It  has 
not  to  do  so  much  with  doctrine  as  with  life.    It  is  not 
a  revolt  from  theory  or  from   prevalent   belief,  but 
from  materialism  in  practice  and  conduct.     Hence  it 
is  not  peculiar  to  any  one  age  or  church  or  country, 
but  is  found  in  all  times  and  under  all  ecclesiastical 
and  theological  systems,  and  under  the  religions  of 
paganism  as  well  as  under  that  of  Christianity.     Per- 
haps it  is  impossible  to  construct  a  formula  for  mys- 
ticism that  shall  be  brief,  concise,  and  adequate,  and  so 
answer  the  demands  of  a  definition,  as  it  certainly  is 
impossible  to  find  one.     The  more,  because  the  thing 
itself  has  always  been  a  reaction  from  formula.     It  is 


MYSTICISM— THE  WALK  WITH  GOD.          5 

one  of  those  spiritual  things  which  may  be  spiritually 
discerned,  wherever  it  appears,  but  which  transcend 
the  limitations  of  words.  You  may  chase  it  through  the 
dictionary,  but  you  will  not  capture  it  there ;  the  net- 
work of  words  is  as  incapable  of  holding  it  as  are  the 
meshes  of  a  seine  to  retain  a  wave  of  the  sea.  I  sus- 
pect that  the  first  mystic  of  whom  we  have  any  record 
was  Enoch,  and  that  the  four  words  which  give  us  his 
whole  biography  come  nearer  to  a  true  definition  than 
any  attempt  that  has  since  been  made  by  theologians 
or  philosophers,  "Enoch  walked  with  God"  That 
such  solitary  prominence  should  have  been  given  to  the 
name  of  one  man  among  a  multitude  of  others  in  that 
far-off  age  beyond  the  flood  indicates  that  he  was  dis- 
tinguished from  his  fellows  in  some  such  way  as  Prince 
Gautama  was  in  India,  as  Confucius  was  in  China,  as 
Socrates  was  in  Greece,  and  as  in  after  times  Tauler 
and  his  companions  were  in  Germany,  F^nelon  in 
France,  and  the  Wesleys  in  England.  There  is  dis- 
cernible in  them  all  the  same  craving  to  get  above 
the  low  and  unspiritual  level  of  their  respective  times, 
to  break  away  from  the  formalism  and  perfunctoriness 
of  the  average  religious  life,  to  find  a  union  with  God 
which  shall  be  as  real  as  the  common  relationships  of 
daily  life. 

It  was  in  that  darkest  time  that  is  just  before  day 
that  the  German  mystics  arose.  It  was  not  yet  the 
dawn  of  the  Reformation.  These  men  were  preparers 
of  the  way ;  voices  crying  in  the  wilderness,  as  John 
the  Baptist  heralded  the  coming  of  Christ.  Tauler 
was  the  forerunner  of  Luther,  though  he  did  his  work 
solely  with  reference  to  the  call  of  present  duty,  all 
unconscious  and  unsuspicious  of  the  bright  future  to 
which  that  work  was  leading  up  the  German  people. 


TAULER   AND    THE  MYSTICS. 

But  very  little  is  known  of  his  earlier  days,  save  that 
he  was  born  the  son  of  a  wealthy  family  in  the  city  of 
Strasburg,  in  the  year  1290.     At  the  age  of  eighteen, 
he  betook  himself  to  a  religious  life.     That  expression 
now  does  not  mean  that  a  man  leaves  the  work-bench 
or  the  counter,  or  any  honest  and  respectable  calling. 
We  live  in  the  happy  day  in  which  religion  is  under- 
stood to  possess  and  sanctify  any  useful  calling,  in 
which  it  is  as  holy  and  as  God-approved  a  work  to 
make  shoes  or  seU  calico  as  it  is  to  translate  the  Scrip- 
tures or  go  on  a  mission  to  the  heathen.     But  not  so 
then.     To  enter  upon  a  religious  life  meant  to  join 
some  order  of  monks,  to  renounce,  at  least  outwardly, 
the  employments  and  enjoyments  of   the  world  and 
live  in  the  convent.     Shortly  after  his  renunciation  of 
the  world  he  proceeded  to  Paris,  which  was  at  that 
time  the  great  centre  of  Christian  learning,  and  where 
able  professors  we^e  expounding  to  thousands  of  stu- 
dents the  philosophy  of  Aristotle  and  the  speculations 
of  the  Schoolmen.     It  was  the  characteristic  doctrine 
of  scholasticism  that  Christianity  was  a  mere  objec- 
tive phenomenon,  to  be  looked  at  and  studied  simply 
as  a  movement  of  history.     That  it  was  also  an  in- 
ward life  was  well-nigh  forgotten.      God  and  Christ 
were  banished  from  human  sympathies ;  men  studied 
and  speculated  upon  the  divine  nature  as  one  might 
peer  at  the  sun  through  a  telescope  from  the  snow- 
covered  summit  of  a  mountain,  where  its  life-giving 
warmth  is  unfelt.     Eeligious  thought  was  purely  spec- 
ulative  and  religious  life  as  purely  in  externals,  and 
in  neither  of  these  could  Tauler  find  much  satisfac- 
tion.    It  was  life,  not  logic,  that  he  longed  for.     He 
turned  over  the  huge  volumes  with  an  eager  mind  and 
a  yearning  heart,  but  found  not  what  he  sought.     It 


AT  PARIS.  7 

was  like  looking  through  window-panes  upon  which 
the  dust  of  years  had  settled  and  over  which  genera- 
tions of  spiders  had  spun  their  webs,  while  he  longed 
for  open  vision.     In  after  years  when  he  had  become 
the  preacher  of  a  living  gospel,  this  student-life  at 
Paris  seemed,  when  he  remembered  it,  to  fill  him  with 
disgust.     "Those  great  masters  at   Paris,"   he  says, 
"  do  read   vast  books  and  turn  over  the  leaves  with 
great  diligence,  which  is  a  very  good  thing ;  but  spir- 
itually enlightened   men  read   the  true  living  book, 
wherein  all  things  live ;   they  turn  over  the  pages  of 
the  heavens  and  the  earth  and  read  therein  the  mighty 
and  admirable  wonders  of  God."     But  dry  and  frigid 
and  unsatisfactory  to  him  as  all  this  logic-chopping  of 
the  schools  was,  it  probably  was  not  without  an  in- 
direct benefit.     It    made  him  feel  still  more  keenly 
a  hunger  for  spiritual  realities.     It  prepared  him  to 
welcome  the  light  still  more  eagerly  when  the  light 
should  come.     And  come  it  did.     On  returning  from 
Paris  to  Strasburg  to  take  up  his  work  as  a  preaching 
friar,  not  well  knowing  as  yet  what  he  had  to  preach, 
he  fell  in  with  a  distinguished  brother  of  his  own  or- 
der, who  was  teaching  the  people  in  their  own  lan- 
guage, with  great  enthusiasm.     He  was  mighty  in  the 
doctrines  of  the  Schoolmen,  but  along  with  his  meta- 
physics he  gave  the  hungry  people  much  of  the  Scrip- 
ture story,  in  a  popular  and  pictorial  form,  turning  it 
into  parables  and  allegories,  teaching  them  withal  the 
evil  of  sin,  and  the  necessity  of  being  at  one  with  God. 
This  Master  Eckart  produced  a  great  impression  upon 
Tauler,  and  seems  to  have  firmly  settled  him  in  the 
truth  that  was  then  dawning  upon  the  world,  that 
"outward  rites  and  observances  are  not  necessary  to 
the  essence  of  piety."     This  truth  Tauler  took  up  and 


TAULER  AND   THE  MYSTICS. 

carried  forward  and  supplemented.    He  taught  likewise 
that  outward  rites  and  observances  are  not  necessary 
to  the  essence  of  piety,  but  he  added  also  this,  that  true 
piety  is  in  the   application  of  religious  principles  to 
life.     He  showed  that  piety  had  its  positive  as 
well  as  its  negative  aspect ;  what  it  is,  as  well  as  what 
is  not.    «  One  can  spin,"  he  says,  «  another  can  make 
shoes;  and  all  these  are  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost.     I 
I  you,  if  I  were  not  a  priest,  I  would  esteem  it  a 
reat  gift  that  I  was  able  to  make  shoes,  and  would 
try  to  make  them  so  well  as  to  be  a  pattern  to  all  " 
The  measure  with  which  we  shall  be  measured  is  the 
faculty  of  love  in  the  soul, -the  will  of  a  man;  by 
this  shall  all  his  life  and  works  be  measured." 

Truth  has  ever  its  counterfeit,  even  as  substance  its 
shadow;  and  the  mysticism  which  was  spring-mo-  Up 
m  the  minds  of  thoughtful  people  was  accompanied 
by  its  grotesque  imitations  and   burlesques.      There 
were  not  wanting  men  who  were  ready,  then  as  now 
to    urn  the  truth  of  God  into  a  lie,  and  make  His  grace 
a  cloak  for  licentiousness.    Even  in  our  own  day  there 
are  men  who,  whether  from  constitutional  inability  or 
from  willful  perversion,  make  no  distinction  betvveen 
iaitn  and   presumption,  between   inward  freedom   of 
the  spirit  and  lawlessness,  between  an  easy  conscience 
and  holiness.     So  this  resurrection  of  true  faith  was 
accompanied  by  the  upspringing  of  the  Brethren  and 
bisters  of  the  Free  Spirit,  as  they  called  themselves 
Tauler  himself  felt  the  hindrance  which  they  imposed 
upon  the  truth,  and,  though  charitable  and  gracious  in 
is  disposition,  handled  them  without  gloves  whenever 
the  opportunity  offered.      "These  Free  Spirits"   he 
says,  "strive  after  a  false  freedom,  and,  on  pretext  of 
following  the  inward  light,  f oUow  only  the  inclinations 
ot  their  own  nature." 


PERVERSIONS   OF  MYSTICISM.  9 

It  would  not  be  possible  for  me  to  give,  within  the 
compass  of  a  brief  lecture,  any  adequate  and  discrim- 
inating review  of  the  character  and  results  of  the 
mysticism  of  the  fourteenth  century.  I  must  content 
myself  with  quoting  from  Mr.  Vaughan  a  single  sen- 
tence :  "  The  memorable  step  of  progress  (made  by 
Tauler  and  his  companions)  is  briefly  indicated  by 
saying  that  they  substituted  the  idea  of  the  immanence 
of  God  in  the  world  for  the  idea  of  the  emanation 
of  the  world  from  God."  1  And  it  is  easy  to  see  how 
this  new  thought  —  an  old  thought  now,  and  one  that 
has  grown  very  precious  to  the  Christian  world  — 
would,  in  its  first  freshness  and  impressiveness,  be 
likely  to  be  perverted  and  parodied  and  made  the  pre- 
text both  for  theoretical  error  and  vicious  practice. 
"  All  things  are  in  God  and  all  things  are  God,"  said 
Master  Eckart.  "  All  creatures  in  themselves  are 
naught :  all  creatures  are  a  speaking  or  utterance  of 
God."  "  Simple  people  conceive  that  we  are  to  see 
God  as  if  He  stood  on  that  side  and  we  on  this.  It 
is  not  so  ;  God  and  I  are  one  in  the  act  of  my  per- 
ceiving Him."  It  is  easy  to  see  how  such  statements 
as  these  could  be  misconstrued  and  perverted  ;  how 
they  might  be  interpreted  as  a  deification  of  the  crea- 
ture, and  the  exaltation  of  self-will  might  be  construed 
as  an  expression  of  the  will  of  God ;  how  all  distinc- 
tion between  good  and  evil,  virtue  and  vice,  might  be 
swept  away,  and  all  external  conduct  become  a  matter 
of  indifference.  Nay,  let  these  utterances  be  hard- 
ened into  intellectual  dogma,  and  they  are  the  most 
dangerous  of  falsehoods.  If  God  is  thus  unqualifiedly 
in  all  created  things,  and  all  things  are  filled  with 
Him,  then  my  will,  whatever  it  be,  is  but  the  putting 
1  Vauglian's  Hours  with  the  Mystics,  book  vi.,  ch.  6. 


10  TAULER  AND  THE  MYSTICS. 

forth  of  His  will,  and  my  act  is  the  act  of  God  Him- 
self. But  the  loftier  the  truth,  the  baser  the  parody 
of  which  it  is  susceptible.  The  devil,  says  St.  Au^us- 
tine,  is  but  the  ape  of  God. 

The  little  that  we  know  about  Tauler's  personal  his- 
tory after  he  returned  to  Strasburg  and  began  to  ex- 
ercise his  vocation  as  a  preaching  friar  may  be  gath- 
ered about  three  events,  and,  meagre  as  it  is,  will  be 
quite  sufficient  to  show  us  what  manner  of  man  he 
was.  These  events  are,  — 

1.  His  defiance  of  the  papal  ban. 

2.  His  conversion* 

3.  The  advent  of  the  plague  usually  known  as  the 
Black  Death. 

1.  "According  to  mediaeval  notions,  Christendom 
was  one,  —  one  church  and  one  political  state.     The 
whole  ecclesiastical  power  centred  in  the  Pope,  who 
was  the  world-priest.     And  the  whole  civil  power  cen- 
tred in  the  Emperor,  who  was  the  world-king."  1     The 
Pope  was  chosen  by  the  college  of  cardinals.     The 
Emperor  was  similarly  chosen  by  a  number  of  prince 
called  Electors,  though,  after  Ms  choice  by  electors, 
the  Emperor  had  to  be  approved  and  acknowledged 
by  the  Pope.     Sometimes  there  was  a  contested  elec- 
tion in  either  case, — two  popes  claiming  the  papal 
tiara,  two  emperors  claiming  the  imperial  crown.     In 
the  year  1314  this  state   of  things  occurred  in  the 
empire  ;  Frederick  of  Austria  and  Louis  of  Bavaria 
both  claimed  the  election,  and  both  were  crowned,  and 
for  eight  weary  years  there  was  a  contest  between  them 
for  the  undivided  power.     The  people  were  divided  in 
their  sentiments.     The  Pope  could  recognize  but  one 
of  the  claimants,  and  Frederick  was  his  favorite.    The 
1  Dr.  T.  M.  Lindsay,  Reformation,  p.  178. 


THE  BAN.  11 

burghers  of  Strasburg  declared  for  Louis,  and  thought 
that  the  Pope  had  no  right  to  interfere  in  civil  affairs. 
He  had  his  own  throne  at  Rome  ;  let  him  attend  to 
his  business  and  rule  the  church.  And  so  the  Pope 
said,  "  Strasburg  shall  be  put  under  the  ban,  and  all 
cities,  towns,  and  individuals  who  acknowledge  Louis 
for  their  emperor."  We  must  not  forget  what  this 
meant.  It  closed  the  doors  of  all  the  churches.  It 
forbade  the  preaching  of  the  gospel  to  those  who  were 
under  the  interdict,  though  if  the  Pope  were  right 
and  the  people  wrong,  one  would  think  that  they 
needed  preaching  all  the  more.  It  refused  the  sacra- 
ments to  Christian  people  ;  it  compelled  the  wicked 
and  lawless  to  go  unadmonished.  It  reduced  society, 
as  far  as  possible,  to  the  condition  of  paganism.  The 
sick  could  receive  no  comfort,  and  the  dying  no  assur- 
ance of  absolution.  And  poor  as  the  aid  and  comfort 
of  the  church  were  in  thosB  da}rs  to  the  weary  and  the 
heavy-laden,  they  were  yet  far  better  than  none.  The 
priests  and  the  monks  took  their  departure  to  other 
towns  and  provinces  which  sided  with  the  Pope,  in 
order  to  avoid  excommunication.  In  a  word,  the  mul- 
titudes of  the  poor  and  the  ignorant  were  made  to  suf- 
fer for  the  offenses  of  their  superiors  ;  and  if  the  ban 
were  deserved  at  all,  it  was  made  to  press  the  heaviest 
where  it  was  least  deserved  and  most  feared.1  Through 

1  "  That  awful  doom  which  canons  tell 
Shuts  paradise  and  opens  hell ; 
Anathema  of  power  so  dread, 
It  blends  the  living  with  the  dead, 
Bids  each  good  angel  soar  away, 
And  every  ill  one  claim  his  prey  ; 
Expels  thee  from  the  church's  care, 
And  deafens  Heaven  against  thy  prayer  ; 
Arms  every  hand  against  thy  life, 


12  TAULER   AND    THE  MYSTICS. 

all  this  long  and  fearf ul  contest,  in  which  the  Pope's 
curse  hung  like  a  thunder-cloud  over  Alsatia,  Tauler 
shrank  not  for  a  moment  from  his  customary  labors. 
The  heavens  were  clear  over  his  head.  In  the  fear  of 
God  and  the  love  of  man  all  lower  fear  vanished  away. 
The  church  door  of  his  convent  was  not  to  be  nailed 
up.  Day  after  day  he  went  about  encouraging  fche 
fearful,  consoling  the  sorrowing,  telling  men  every- 
where of  the  love  of  God,  endeavoring  in  every  way 
to  vary  and  multiply  his  labors  so  as  far  as  possible  to 
fill  the  places  deserted  by  his  brethren.  He  was  the 
good  shepherd  of  his  own  flock  and  of  all  the  shep- 
herdless  flocks  that  he  could  reach  by  his  voice  or  his 
pen.  God's  gentleness  made  him  great  in  that  fearful 
time,  —  very  great.  If  we  knew  nothing  else  about 
him  than  this,  this  alone  .would  glorify  him  as  a  star 
of  the  first  magnitude  in  that  dark  night  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  Strong  and  tender*  brave  and  Christly  man, 
John  Tauler  !  There  is  no  sainthood  since  apostolic 
days  that  can  outrival  thine  !  He  addressed  a  letter 
to  his  brother-priests  about  this  time,  urging  them  to 

Bans  all  who  aid  thee  in  the  strife, 
Nay,  each  whose  succor  cold  and  scant 
With  meanest  alms  relieves  thy  want ; 
Haunts  thee  while  living,  —  and,  when  dead, 
Dwells  on  thy  yet  devoted  head  ; 
Rends  Honor's  scutcheon  from  thy  hearse, 
Stills  o'er  thy  bier  the  holy  verse, 
And  spurns  thy  corpse  from  hallowed  ground, 
Flung  like  vile  carrion  to  the  hound  ;  — 
Such  is  the  dire  and  desperate  doom 
For  sacrilege  decreed  by  Rome."  —  Lord  of  the  Isles. 
Sir  Walter's  picture,  so  far  from  being  overdrawn,  is  tamer 
than  the  facts  would  warrant,  through  the  exigencies  of  rhyme 
and  metre.     For  a  description  less  bizarre,  but  really  more  ade- 
quate, see  Wordsworth's  Ecclesiastical  Sonnets,  part  I.,  xxxvi. 


CONVERSION.  13 

comfort  the  people,  and  keep  on  preaching  and  adminis- 
tering the  sacraments.  "  For,"  he  says,  "  ye  are  bound 
to  visit  and  console  the  sick,  remembering  the  bitter 
pain  and  death  of  Christ,  who  hath  made  satisfaction, 
not  for  your  sins  only,  but  also  for  those  of  the  whole 
world ;  who  doth  represent  us  all  before  God,  so  that 
if  one  falleth  innocently  under  the  ban,  no  pope  can 
shut  him  out  of  heaven.  Ye  should,  therefore,  give 
absolution  to  such  as  wish  therefor,  giving  heed  rather 
to  the  bidding  of  Christ  and  his  apostles  than  to  the 
ban,  which  is  issued  only  out  of  malice  and  avarice." 
"Those  who  hold  the  true  Christian  faith,  and  sin 
only  against  the  person  of  the  Pope,  are  no  heretics. 
Those  rather  are  real  heretics  who  obstinately  refuse 
to  repent  and  forsake  their  sins :  for  let  a  man  have 
been  what  he  may,  if  he  will  so  do,  he  cannot  be  cast 
out  of  the  true  church.  Through  Christ,  the  truly 
penitent  thief,  murderer,  traitor,  adulterer,  all  may 
have  forgiveness.  Such  as  God  beholdeth  under  an 
unrighteous  ban,  He  will  turn  for  them  the  curse  into 
a  blessing."  Luther  himself  uttered  no  braver  words 
than  these,  two  hundred  years  later,  at  Worms  or 
Wittenberg. 

2.  His  greatness  appears  in  another  way,  though 
perhaps  quite  as  significantly,  in  the  crisis  of  his  life, 
which  is  commonly  called  his  conversion,  which  oc- 
curred in  1340,  when  Tauler  was  fifty  years  of  age. 
His  humility  and  childlikeness  of  spirit  were  as  con- 
spicuous in  this  as  was  his  bravery  in  his  treatment  of 
the  ban.  He  had  been  preaching  now  for  many  years, 
and  his  fame  had  gone  far  and  wide.  He  was  known 
and  loved  as  a  good  and  holy  man.  There  appeared 
one  day  in  his  audience  a  stranger,1  who  heard  the 
1  Nicholas  of  Basle. 


14  TAULER  AND   THE  MYSTICS. 

sermon  through,  and  then  desired  to  make  confession 
and  receive  absolution.  This  he  did  several  times. 
At  length  the  layman  requested,  to  the  doctor's  sur- 
prise, that  he  would  preach  a  sermon  setting  forth 
the  highest  spiritual  attainment  and  how  it  may  be 
reached.  The  sermon  was  preached,  and  it  is  still 
extant,  setting  forth,  in  four  and  twenty  articles,  the 
highest  spiritual  attainment.  But  the  godly  layman 
was  not  satisfied.  He  plainly  told  the  preacher  that, 
while  preaching  to  others,  he  had  not  yet  discovered 
the  sinfulness  of  his  own  heart,  that  he  had  never  yet 
made  a  complete  surrender  of  his  own  will  to  God, 
and  that  he  had  come  thirty  leagues,  not  so  much  to 
hear  him  preach  as  to  warn  him  against  deceiving 
himself.  A  flush  of  indignation  for  a  moment  spread 
itself  over  the  doctor's  face,  that  a  layman  should 
dare  to  addresS  him  thus  ;  but  instantly  he  recog- 
nized it  as  the  faithful  wound  of  a  friend,  and  took 
the  reproof  with  the  utmost  humility  and  sweetness  of 
spirit.  The  word,  like  a  flash  of  lightning,  had  illu- 
mined the  depths  of  his  nature,  had  detected  in  him  a 
.lurking  pride  and  self-sufficiency  of  which  he  had  been 
all  unaware,  and,  deeply  humbled  and  mortified,  he 
embraced  the  layman,  saying,  "Thou  hast  been  the 
first  to  tell  me  of  my  fault.  Oh,  stay  with  me,  and 
show  me  how  I  may  overcome  it.  Thou  shalt  be  my 
spiritual  father,  and  I  will  be  thy  poor,  sinful  son." 
Now  this  was  not  morbidness,  but  downright  honesty. 
It  was  the  fifty-first  Psalm,  translated  into  the  Ger- 
man of  the  Middle  Ages.  It  was  the  cry  of  the  self- 
recognized  and  self  -  condemned  publican,  "  God  be 
merciful  to  me  a  sinner."  So  humbled  in  this  new 
degree  of  self-knowledge  did  the  poor  friar  become, 
that  for  two  years  his  lips  were  sealed  in  shame.  He 


NICHOLAS   OF  BASLE.  15 

did  not  dare  to  preach.  The  agony  of  his  spirit  wasted 
his  body  and  reduced  his  physical  strength  as  if  a  dis- 
ease were  upon  him.  He  was  taunted  by  his  enemies 
for  his  silence,  and  even  his  friends  suspected  and  for- 
sook him.  His  fellow-monks  ridiculed  him  for  being 
stricken  with  a  sorrow  that  they  could  not  understand. 
Even  the  mercy  of  God,  which  he  had  preached  so 
freely  to  others,  he  felt  too  wicked  and  too  unworthy 
to  claim  for  himself.  But  out  of  this  furnace  he  was 
to  come  forth  as  gold  that  has  been  tried  in  the  fire. 
The  night  of  weeping  was  to  be  followed  by  a  morn- 
ing of  joy.  As  he  lay  one  day  upon  his  couch  there 
came  into  his  thought  the  recollection  of  the  suffer- 
ings and  love  of  his  Lord,  and  of  his  own  ungrate- 
fulness, and  there  welled  up  out  of  his  heart  and 
overflowed  from  his  lips  these  words,  "  O  merciful 
God,  have  mercy  upon  me  a  poor  sinner ;  have  mercy 
in  thine  infinite  compassion,  for  I  am  not  worthy  to 
live  upon  the  face  of  the  earth !  "  And  as  a  mother 
hears  the  cry  and  runs  to  the  succor  of  her  child,  God 
came  to  him  with  abundant  comfort.  Emptied  of 
himself,  he  was  filled  with  the  peace  that  passeth 
understanding,  and  with  the  peace  came  power. 
"  Now,"  said  his  faithful  friend,  "  thou  knowest  the 
power  of  God's  grace.  Now  thou  wilt  understand 
the  Scripture  as  never  before,  and  be  able  to  show 
thy  fellow-Christians  the  way  to  eternal  life.  Now 
one  of  thy  ^sermons  will  bring  more  fruit  than  a 
hundred  aforetime,  coming,  as  it  will,  from  a  simple, 
loving,  humbled  heart ;  and  much  as  the  people  have 
set  thee  at  naught,  they  will  now  far  more  love  and 
prize  thee.  But  a  man  with  great  treasure  must 
guard  against  thieves.  See  to  it  that  thou  hold  fast 
thy  humility,  by  which  thou  wilt  best  keep  thy  riches. 


16  TAULER  AND   THE  MYSTICS. 

Now  thou  needest  my  teaching  no  longer,  having  found 
the  right  Master,  whose  instrument  I  am,  and  who 
sent  me  hither.  Now  in  all  godly  love  thou  shalt 
teach  me  in  turn."  And  it  all  came  true.  From  this 
time  forth  he  was  known  and  loved,  and  honored  and 
reverenced,  for  his  life  of  active  love  and  pity,  of 
patience  and  meekness,  —  a  life  in  imitation  of  Christ. 
From  this  time  they  called  him  "  Doctor  Illuminatus," 
the  Doctor  upon  whom  a  great  light  hath  shined.1 

3.  A  few  years  after  this  occurred  the  third  event 
which  served  to  disclose  the  greatness  and  real  Christ- 
liness  of  the  man.  In  1348  the  Black  Death  appeared 
in  Strasburg.  It  was  a  plague,  says  Petrarch,  that 
desolated  the  world.  For  fifteen  years  previous  it 
had  been  ravaging  the  Orient.  It  had  been  accom- 
panied, or  rather  preceded,  by  terrible  convulsions 
of  nature  and  by  a  great  variety  of  calamities,  which, 
in  those  days,  and  even  down  to  our  own  time,  were 
regarded  rather  as  the  capricious  visitations  of  a 
wrathful  God  than  as  the  inevitable  and  legitimate 
results  of  natural  causes.  There  had  been  droughts, 
famines,  floods,  swarms  of  locusts,  and  earthquakes 
which  had  changed  in  an  hour  the  contour  of  vast 
areas  of  the  earth's  surface.  The  order  of  the  seasons 
even  seemed  to  have  lost  its  stability,  —  heavy  snows 
falling  in  summer  and  fierce  lightnings  in  winter,  ex- 

1  John  Tauler's  Covenant,  A.  D.  1340  :  "  Dear  Lord  and 
Bridegroom,  I  here  vow  and  promise  to  Thee  surely,  that  all 
which  Thou  wiliest  I  also  will.  Come  sickness,  come  health, 
come  pleasure  or  pain,  sweet  or  bitter,  cold  or  heat,  wet  or  dry, 
whatever  Thou  wiliest  that  do  I  also  will  ;  and  desire  altogether 
to  come  out  from  my  own  will,  and  to  yield  a  whole  and  willing 
obedience  unto  Thee,  and  never  to  desire  aught  else,  either  in 
will  or  thought ;  only  let  Thy  will  be  accomplished  in  me  in  time 
and  in  eternity." 


BLACK  DEATH.  17 

cessive  cold  in  July  and  a  corresponding  degree  of  heat 
in  December,  and  at  last  the  plague.  Vast  masses 
of  organic  matter,  the  bodies  of  unburied  animals 
and  men,  were  strewn  over  the  ground.  The  locusts 
that  had  devoured  every  green  thing  and  exhausted  all 
life  became  in  turn  the  prey  of  death,  and  poisoned 
with  their  corruption  the  air  which  they  had  before 
darkened  with  their  flight.  Some  chroniclers  tell  us 
that  the  fetid  atmosphere  became  visible ;  so  heavily 
was  it  laden  with  pestilence  and  death  that  its  folds 
covered  the  earth  and  draped  the  hill-sides  like  a 
funeral  pall.  No  country  was  exempt  from  the  vis- 
itation, no  classes  were  secure  from  attack,  whole 
towns  were  made  desolate.  On  the  land  every  house 
was  a  pest-house,  and  on  the  sea  the  ships  were  float- 
ing morgues,  often  with  no  helmsman  to  guide  them, 
freighted  with  corpses,  and  spreading  their  contagion 
wherever  wind  and  wave  chanced  to  waft  them.  There 
were  not  enough  of  the  living  to  care  for  the  dead  or 
to  dig  their  graves,  and  the  very  rivers  were  conse- 
crated as  cemeteries,  and  floated  along  through  town 
and  field  their  crowded  drift  of  death.1 

The  estimated  mortality  is  appalling  to  think  of 
after  half  a  thousand  years  have  passed.  It  is  as 
if  the  habitable  world  had  been  swept  by  a  flood  of 
death.  In  the  Orient  forty  millions  perished.  In 
Europe  twenty-five  millions.  The  city  of  London 
alone  lost  one  hundred  thousand.  Italy  lost  one  half 
of  all  its  population  ;  Southern  France  two  thirds.  In 
many  parts  of  France  it  was  computed  that  only  one 
out  of  ten  was  left  alive.  In  Tauler's  own  little  city 
of  Strasburg  sixteen  thousand  persons  fell  victims  to 

1  See  Vaughan,  vol.  i.,  book  vi.,  ch.  7.  Also,  Hecker's  Epi- 
demics of  the  Middle  Ages. 

2 


18  TAULER  AND   THE  MYSTICS. 

it.  And  the  plague  did  more  than  destroy  life.  It 
dissolved  the  very  bonds  of  society.  Natural  affection 
seemed  to  die  even  in  the  hearts  of  fathers  and 
mothers,  husbands  and  wives.  Fear  of  danger  slew  its 
tens  of  thousands,  and  where  it  did  not  slay  it  made 
men  hard  and  women  cruel.  Trade  and  commerce 
came  to  a  stand-still.  The  merchant  dreaded  to  touch 
the  money  of  his  customer,  the  buyer  equally  feared 
the  merchandise  of  the  seller.  Death  was  lurking 
everywhere  and  in  everything.  "  Every  man  dreaded 
not  merely  the  touch  and  the  breath  of  his  neighbor, 
but  his  very  eye,  so  subtile  and  so  swift  seemed  the 
infection."  Superstition  aggravated  the  horror.  Men, 
thinking  to  appease  the  wrath  of  God  by  penance, 
formed  themselves  into  wandering  bands,  with  rules 
for  self-torture.  In  ghastly  processions,  half-naked, 
and  chanting  wild  and  doleful  airs,  they  traversed  the 
continent  of  Europe,  scourging  and  lacerating  them- 
selves, entreating  others  to  join  in  their  fanatical  will- 
worship,  and  only  spreading  more  widely  the  very 
contagion  which  they  deprecated  by  their  scourgings 
and  ululations.  Then,  too,  an  ignorant  and  unrea- 
soning race -hate  played  its  part.  Here  and  there 
where  Jews  were  assembled  they  were  accused  of 
creating  the  pestilence  by  poisoning  the  wells,  and 
thousands  of  them  were  burned  in  their  homes,  twelve 
thousand  in  the  city  of  Mayence  alone.  "  At  Stras- 
burg  a  monster  scaffold  was  erected  in  the  Jewish 
burial-ground,  and  two  thousand  were  burnt  alive  in  a 
single  holocaust.  At  Basle  all  the  Jews  were  burnt 
together  in  a  wooden  edifice  erected  for  the  purpose. 
At  Spires  they  set  their  quarter  in  flames  and  per- 
ished by  their  own  hands."  On  every  hand  there  was 
terror  or  cruelty,  recklessness  or  despair. 


THE  HERESY  OF  LOVE.  19 

John  Tauler  had  got  far  beyond  any  fear  of  the 
pestilence  that  walketh  in  darkness  or  the  destruction 
that  wasteth  at  noon -day.  He  had  compassed  the 
endeavor  of  the  true  mystic,  and  was  "  walking  with 
God."  He  dwelt  in  the  secret  place  of  the  Most 
High,  and  abode  under  the  shadow  of  the  Almighty. 
With  two  brother-monks  of  like  mind,  by  day  and 
by  night  he  went  about  among  the  dead  and  dying, 
preparing  these  for  burial,  and  inspiring,  comforting, 
cheering  with  the  promises  of  the  gospel,  those  who 
were  entering  the  valley  of  death.  He  was  mother, 
nurse,  and  minister  in  one.  Works  of  love  are  bet- 
ter, said  he,  than  lofty  contemplation,  and  to  carry 
broth  to  a  sick  brother  more  pleasing  to  God  than 
to  be  rapt  away  at  such  a  time  in  devoutest  prayer. 

"  Love  took  up  the  harp  of  life  and  smote  on  all  the  chords  with 

might,  — 

Smote  the  chord  of  Self,  that,  trembling,  passed  in  music  out  of 
sight." 

Meantime  the  renewal  of  the  Pope's  ban  had  increased 
the  terrors  of  the  ignorant,  and  added  to  the  general 
distress.  But  this  was  no  time  to  question  whether 
the  Pope  was  to  be  obeyed.  Obeying  him  in  such  a 
case  would  surely  be  disloyalty  to  God.  Ban  or  no 
ban  these  brothers  should  not  die  unshrived,  nor  go 
out  into  the  dark  unlighted  by  the  candle  of  his  faith 
or  the  comfort  of  the  sacrament.  His  word  was  as 
good  as  the  Pope's.  "  Son,  daughter,  thy  sins  are  for- 
given thee  for  the  dear  Lord's  sake.  If  thou  truly 
repentest  die  in  peace."  Tauler  had  learned  the  great 
lesson  that  man's  highest  good  is  to  find  the  living 
God  and  to  come  to  Him  ;  and  that  this  is  for  every 
man,  and  that  every  man  must  find  Him  and  come  to 
Him  for  himself ;  and  that  neither  priest  nor  pope 


20  TAULER   AND   THE  MYSTICS. 

can  stand  between  the  two.  He  knew  that  the  church 
might  ban  or  bless  whom  she  would;  the  ban  or  the 
blessing  were  equally  of  no  account  in  such  high  af- 
fairs as  these.  There  was  the  voice  of  God  himself 
made  articulate  by  the  lips  of  the  man  Christ  Jesus, 
and  sounding  forevermore,  through  the  sin  and  sorrow 
and  sickness  and  death  of  this  world  for  every  soul 
that  would  heed  it,  "  Come  unto  me  all  ye  that  labor 
and  are  heavy-laden  and  I  will  give  you  rest.  Take 
my  yoke  upon  you,  and  learn  of  me  to  be  meek  and 
lowly  of  heart,  and  ye  shall  find  rest  to  your  souls." 
That  yoke  he  had  taken,  that  rest  he  had  found,  and 
these  dying  brothers  of  his  should  know  it,  and  should 
know  the  way  to  it ;  and  if  the  ban  burnt  him,  or  the 
plague  slew  him  in  making  it  known,  what  mattered 
it  ?  he  was  with  God,  and  God  was  with  him  here  or 
there. 

The  Dark  Ages  were  passing  away.  That  time 
could  not  be  wholly  dark  that  could  give  to  the  world 
one  such  character  as  this.  Through  that  long  historic 
night  there  gleams  many  a  star  of  chivalry,  there 
burns  many  a  meteor  of  knightly  valor,  there  sounds 
many  a  chanson  of  heroism ;  but  what  feats  of  knight- 
errantry,  what  devotion  of  crusader,  what  enthusiasm 
of  battle  for  the  rescue  of  captive  knighthood  or  the 
recovery  of  conquered  shrine,  is  worthy  for  a  moment  to 
compare  with  this  ?  Without  question  there  were  mul- 
titudes numbered  among  the  mystics  of  the  fourteenth 
century  who  reflected  no  honor  upon  the  name.  There 
are  always  shams  in  plenty  masquerading  as  true  men 
and  women ;  and  some  even  of  these  are  honest,  being 
egregiously  self-deceived.  But  hold  them  up  by  Tauler 
and  the  difference  is  painfully  clear.  Throw  the 
leaden  coin  down  along  with  the  silver,  and  what  you 


LUX  IN  TENEBRIS.  21 

thought  was  a  ring  is  only  a  pitiful  thud.  The  saint- 
hood of  Tauler  is  the  sainthood  of  all  time.  There  is 
no  other.  Its  one  unchanging  formula,  yesterday  and 
to-day  and  forever,  is,  "  Whosoever  he  be  among  you 
that  f orsaketh  not  all  that  he  hath  and  taketh  not  up 
his  cross  and  followeth  not  after  me,  he  cannot  be  my 
disciple."  The  gateway  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven, 
now  as  then,  is  the  spirit  of  a  little  child. 


II. 

WICLIF. 

A.  D.  1324-1384. 

ONCE  more  the  Church  is  seized  with  sudden  fear, 
And  at  her  call  is  Wiclif  disinhumed : 
Yea,  his  dry  bones  to  ashes  are  consumed 
And  flung  into  the  brook  that  travels  near; 
Forthwith,  that  ancient  Voice,  which  Streams  can  hear, 
Thus  speaks  (that  Voice  which  walks  upon  the  wind, 
Though  seldom  heard  by  busy  human-kind)  — 
'As  thou  these  ashes,  little  Brook!  wilt  bear 
Into  the  Avon,  Avon  to  the  tide 
Of  Severn,  Severn  to  the  narrow  seas, 
Into  main  Ocean  they,  this  deed  accurst 
An  emblem  yields  to  friends  and  enemies 
How  the  bold  Teacher's  Doctrine,  sanctified 
By  truth,  shall  spread,  throughout  the  world  dispersed." 

WORDSWORTH'S  Eccl.  Sonnets,  part  II.,  xiii. 


II. 

WICLIF. 
A.  D.  1324-1384. 

THERE  is  said  to  have  been  preserved  in  the  city  of 
Prague  a  missal,  containing  the  ancient  liturgy  of  the 
Hussites,  one  of  whose  rich  illuminations  represents 
Wiclif  at  the  top  of  the  page  kindling  a  spark.  Just 
below,  Hus  is  portrayed  blowing  the  spark  into  a 
flame.  And  finally,  underneath  Hus  stands  Luther, 
brandishing  a  lighted  torch.  It  is  a  just  portrayal 
of  the  relations  in  which  the  three  men  stood  histor- 
ically to  each  other.  Whether  the  familiar  designa- 
tion by  which  Wiclif  has  been  styled  "  the  Morning- 
Star  of  the  Reformation "  was  suggested  by  the  pic- 
ture, or  whether  the  picture  was  inspired  by  a  title 
that  had  been  already  given,  I  do  not  know.  It  is  cer- 
tainly true  that  Wiclif  was  the  pioneer  in  the  heroic 
work  in  which  Hus  gave  up  his  life  and  Luther  was 
put  under  the  ban,  and  which  has  had  as  its  modern 
outcome  the  freedom  and  greatness  of  the  three  great- 
est powers  of  the  world  in  the  nineteenth  century,  — 
free  Germany,  free  England,  and  free  America. 

Protestants  of  every  tongue  have  just  united  with 
Germany  in  celebrating  the  four  hundredth  anniver- 
sary of  Luther's  birth.  But  to  all  English-speaking 
peoples  a  more  significant  as  well  as  a  more  venerable 
anniversary  will  come  with  the  last  day  of  the  year 


26  WICLIF. 

(1884)  upon  which  we  are  about  to  enter.1     On  that 
day  five  centuries  will  have  elapsed  since  John  Wiclif 
died.     It  is  too  petty  and  invidious  a  question  to  ask, 
which  of  the  two  men  is  the  more  worthy  of  distinc- 
tion ?    Each  did  his  work,  and  did  it  well,  —  the  work 
for  which  the  Church  and  the  world  were  ignorantly 
waiting.     The  two  worked  along  similar  lines,  by  sim- 
ilar methods,  under  the  inspiration  of  the  same  thought, 
—  the  inalienable  right  of  every  human  spirit  to  the 
liberty  of  the  sons  of  God.     They  both  attacked  one 
system  of  spiritual  tyranny,  both  asserted  the  same 
right  of  private  judgment,  both  appealed  to  the  same 
standards  of  authority  and  reason,  both  were  Protes- 
tants before  Protestantism  existed  as  a  system.     And 
yet  Englishmen  —  and  we  are  English  —  cannot  for- 
get that  our  Wiclif  dared  to  call  the  Pope  Antichrist 
a  century  and  a  half  before  the  Wittenberg   monk 
burned  the  bull  of  that  Pope's  successor ;  that  a  Bible 
in  their  own  language  went  forth  to  the  common  peo- 
ple of  England  from  the  Lutterworth  parsonage,  pre- 
ceding by  the  same  space  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  the  German  Bible  that  was  set  free  from  the 
towers  of  the  Wartburg.     We  cannot  forget  that  the 
Oxford  scholar  knew  little  Greek  and  less  Hebrew, 
and  so  had  to  translate  from  a  translation,  while  the 
subsequent  revival  of  Oriental  learning  enabled  the 
German  to  draw  from  the  original  tongues  in  which 
the  "holy  men  of  old  wrote  as  they  were  moved  by 
the  Holy  Ghost."     We  cannot  forget  that  the  work  of 
the  Englishman  had  to  be  painfully  copied  by  hand 
and  secretly  distributed,  and  so  was  handicapped  in  its 
course,  while  that  of  the  German  found  the  printing- 
press  waiting  to  give  it  a  thousand  wings.     Whatever 
1  Spoken  December  16,  1883. 


REIGN  OF  EDWARD  III.  27 

judgment,  therefore,  might  be  pronounced  by  the 
world  at  large  as  to  the  relative  merits  of  the  two 
men,  and  the  relative  value  of  the  parts  they  respec- 
tively bore  in  the  great  historic  movement  of  the  Ref- 
ormation, we  English-speakers,  at  least,  must  claim 
that  for  us  Wiclif  stands  preeminent. 

That  was  a  great  century  in  the  first  quarter  of 
which  Wiclif  had  his  birth,  and  in  the  last  quarter  of 
which  he  died.  It  would  have  been  marked  in  Eng- 
lish annals  had  he  not  lived  at  all.  Few  reigns  have 
been  more  splendid  than  that  of  Edward  the  Third, 
who  came  to  the  throne  within  a  few  years  of  Wiclif 's 
birth,  and  held  it  for  half  a  century.  It  was  the  cen- 
tury of  Crdcy  and  Poitiers,  which  gave  to  Englishmen 
for  a  time  the  mastery  of  France.  Chivalry  then  pro- 
duced its  consummate  flower  in  the  person  of  the 
Black  Prince,  than  whom,  in  his  best  days,  knight 
was  never  more  brave  or  gentle,  more  bold  or  gra- 
cious. It  was  during  the  fifty  years  of  Edward's  reign 
that  architecture  lent  her  assistance  to  religion  in  the 
completion  of  those  glorious  structures  which  for  hun- 
dreds of  years  have  made  Lincoln  and  Wells  and  Pe- 
terborough and  Salisbury  and  Westminster  and  Win- 
chester the  favorite  resorts  of  poetry  and  devotion. 
It  was  then  that  the  great  William  of  Wykeham 
founded  the  first  of  the  famous  public  schools  of  Eng- 
land. It  was  then  that  Chaucer  sung  the  "  Canterbury 
Pilgrimage  "  and  the  "  Romaunt  of  the  Rose."  It 
was  then  that  the  nation  finally  cast  off  the  trammels 
of  a  foreign  tongue,  and  the  English  first  asserted  it- 
self as  a  true  national  language  ;  the  laws  began  to 
be  published  and  the  proceedings  of  the  courts  to  be 
conducted  in  the  dialect  of  the  people.  Great  prog- 
ress was  made  in  jurisprudence.  Trial  by  jury  dis- 


28  WICLIF. 

placed  the  ruder  methods  of  the  ordeal  and  the  com- 
bat, and  more  important  new  laws  were  passed  in  the 
time  of  Edward  than  in  all  the  preceding  reigns  since 
the  Conquest ;  none  more  important,  perhaps,  than 
the  famous  act  designated,  from  its  initial  word,  the 
statute  of  pramunire,  which  was  introduced  for  the 
purpose  of  checking  papal  encroachments  on  the  pre- 
rogatives of  the  crown,  and  which  finally  resulted  in 
its  being  made  a  penal  offense  to  endeavor  to  enforce 
the  authority  of  papal  bulls  and  provisions  upon  Eng- 
lish soil.  Learning,  also,  was  eagerly  pursued  ;  thirty 
thousand  students  at  one  time,  and  from  almost  all 
ranks  of  society,  thronged  the  halls  and  colleges  of 
Oxford,  and  first  gave  it  the  dignity  of  a  great  Uni- 
versity. 

Besides  all  this,  great  changes  took  place  in  the 
structure  of  society ;  men  were  brought  more  nearly 
to  one  level  than  they  had  ever  been  before.  The  strin- 
gency of  the  old  feudal  system  was  relaxed,  and  finally 
passed  away  under  the  force  of  events  which  legisla- 
tion would  have  been  powerless  to  control.  That  ter- 
rible Black  Death,  which  in  the  course  of  a  few  months 
swept  away  a  full  half  of  the  population  of  England, 
had  its  beneficent  results.  It  made  labor  scarce  and 
created  a  rise  in  wages.  It  broke  up  that  custom 
which  had  long  had  the  force  of  law,  by  which  tenants 
might  not  leave  the  estates  of  their  old  landlords.  It 
sent  them,  by  a  law  as  inevitable  as  gravity,  to  the 
points  where  the  best  wages  were  to  be  had  for  their 
labor,  and  practically  brought  servitude  to  an  end. 
The  masses  became  free  people  working  for  their  wages. 
Such  was  the  reign  of  Edward  III.,  which  was  wholly 
embraced  in  the  life  of  Wiclif :  magnificent  in  its  con- 
quests, splendid  in  its  arts,  revolutionary  in  its  juris- 


SOCIAL   AND  POLITICAL   CHANGES.  29 

prudence,  beneficent  in  its  social  aspects,  inspiring  to 
patriotism,  propitious  to  learning.  The  whole  move- 
ment of  the  age  was  towards  freedom,  liberality,  en- 
largement. And  yet  we  have  not  touched  its  highest 
glory,  for  we  have  said  nothing  of  its  religious  aspect. 
All  this  was  setting  for  the  jewel ;  all  this  was  the 
environment  of  Wiclif .  It  has  been  said  that  a  great 
age  makes  a  great  man.  The  doctrine  of  environ- 
ment is  a  favorite  doctrine  of  to-day.  But  it  is  cer- 
tain that  a  great  man  helps  to  make  a  great  age.  It 
is  not  possible  at  present,  and  perhaps  it  will  not  be 
possible  for  many  years  to  come,  if  ever,  to  settle  the 
questions,  how  much  Wiclif  owed  to  his  environment, 
and  how  much  his  environment  owed  to  him.  For, 
strangely  enough,  the  great  mass  of  his  works,  unlike 
those  of  Luther,  remain  still  in  manuscript,  in  the  Latin 
tongue,  deposited  among  continental  archives,  and  so 
accessible  to  but  few  among  even  critical  students  of 
history.  We  know  he  was  great,  but  how  great  can  as 
yet  be  told  only  approximately.  Even  his  enemies  ac- 
knowledged his  intellectual  preeminence  in  language 
which  friendship  could  hardly  have  surpassed.  I 
translate  a  few  words  quoted  by  Dr.  Lechler  from  a 
popish  chronicler  : l  "A  doctor  in  theology  the  most 
eminent  of  his  day  ;  in  philosophy,  deemed  second 
to  none ;  in  scholastic  discipline,  incomparable.  He 
soared  far  above  others  in  the  subtlety  of  his  genius, 
and  surpassed  them  in  the  profundity  of  his  knowl- 


It  will  be  sufficient  for  my  purpose  at  this  time  if 
we  look  briefly  at  Wiclif's  work  under  the  three  as- 
pects in  which  that  work  was  successively  developed  ; 
as  a  patriot,  a  religious  reformer,  and  a  man  of 

letters. 

1  Knighton. 


30  WICLIF. 

1.  Wiclif  is  already  from  forty  to  forty-five  years  of 
age  before  he  is  seen  to  enter,  at  least  with  any  promi- 
nence, into  the  affairs  of  his  time.  His  life  previous  to 
1365  is  involved  in  much  obscurity.  Of  his  boyhood 
and  early  training  and  of  his  parentage  almost  nothing 
is  known.  Even  the  year  of  his  birth  is  uncertain. 
That  he  was  trained  in  the  University  of  Oxford,  and 
was  faithful  and  devout  and  of  an  exceptionally  bright 
mind,  and  of  large  attainments  as  a  scholar  as  scholar- 
ship then  was,  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  he  was 
made  successively  Fellow  of  one  college,  Master  of  a 
second,  and  Warden  of  a  third.  In  this  great  silent 
period  he  must  have  been  very  assiduous  in  laying  his 
foundations.  The  grand  structure  which  the  after- 
years  beheld  could  have  rested  upon  no  dilettanteism 
or  perfunctoriness.  We  may  well  believe  that  he  was, 
what  a  recent  investigator1  has  called  him,  "The 
foremost  man  of  his  university,  the  acknowledged 
representative  of  the  greatness  of  Grosseteste  and 
Ockham,"  and,  as  one  of  his  most  bitter  contemporary 
opponents  affirmed,  "  By  the  common  sort  of  divines 
esteemed  little  less  than  a  god."2 

From  his  quiet,  cloister-led  student  life,  he  suddenly 
steps  forth  into  the  arena  of  public  affairs.  And  it 
surprises  us,  as  we  read  the  story,  to  see  what  a  man 
of  affairs  he  is,  —  intense,  clear  of  vision,  practical. 
It  is  not  as  the  priest,  or  the  scholar,  or  the  religious 
reformer,  but  as  the  patriot  that  he  comes  to  the  front. 

1  Professor  Burrows,  Wiclif  s  Place  in  History,  p.  4. 

2  "  Even  in  the  present  day  he  is  reckoned  by  the  learned 
among  the  four  greatest  schoolmen  whom  the  fourteenth  century 
possessed,  and  as  sharing  the  palm  with  Duns  Scotus,  Occam, 
and   Bradwardine."  —  Dr.   Johann    Loserth,    Wiclif  and   Hus, 
p.  xv. 


EDWARD   III.  AND   URBAN  V.  81 

He  was  always  a  reformer,  to  be  sure,  but  his  ideas 
passed  through  a  gradation  which  was  compelled  and 
colored  by  the  aspects  of  the  time.  They  are  political 
at  first,  during  his  middle  life ;  afterwards  the  polit- 
ical aspect  fades  out,  and  more  distinctly  religious 
motives  come  to  the  front.1  He  is  first  of  all  con- 
cerned in  the  condition  of  the  state,  its  welfare,  its 
liberties,  its  honor ;  and  we  shall  see  how  he  was  in- 
evitably and  by  a  sort  of  evolutionary  process  brought 
from  this  into  the  work  of  a  religious  reformer,  and 
from  that  into  his  work  under  its  final  aspect  as 
a  Bible  translator  and  man  of  letters.  His  first  move- 
ment, then,  was  in  this  wise :  — 

In  1365,  when  Wiclif  was  from  forty  to  forty-five 
years  of  age,  Pope  Urban  V.  made  a  demand  upon 
Edward  HI.  for  the  annual  payment  of  one  thousand 
marks  as  a  feudal  tribute.  This  tribute  had  been  im- 
posed one  hundred  and  fifty  years  before  by  Pope 
Innocent  III.  upon  King  John  and  his  successors,  as 
the  condition  of  their  holding  the  crown,  but  had  long 
fallen  into  irregularity,  and  of  late  years  entirely  into 
disuse.  So  that  Urban  not  only  demanded  the  annual 
payment  of  one  thousand  marks,  but  also  arrearages 
for  thirty-three  years,  a  sum  which  would  be  equal  . 
now  to  about  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars 
of  our  money.  In  the  previous  century  it  was  ascer- 
tained that  the  papal  see  for  several  years  had  drawn 
out  of  England  an  annual  revenue  of  sixty  thousand 
marks,  or  six  hundred  thousand  dollars  of  our  money. 
Besides  this  it  has  been  computed  that  at  this  very 
time  more  than  half  the  landed  property  of  the  king- 
dom was  in  the  hands  of  the  Romish  priesthood.2 

1  Lechler,  ii.,  p.  313. 

2  Le  Bas'  Life  of  Wiclif,  p.  131  (London,  1832).     "  Of  fifty- 


32  WICLIF. 

And  to  this  must  also  be  added  the  fact  that  the  Pope 
had,  so  far  as  possible,  filled  English  benefices  with 
foreigners,  whose  revenues,  as  estimated  by  Kobert 
Grosseteste,  the  famous  bishop  of  Lincoln,  were  no 
less  than  seventy  thousand  marks,  —  seven  hundred 
thousand  dollars,  three  times  the  clear  revenue  of  the 
king.  And  when  we  consider,  as  Mr.  Hallam  says,1 
that  the  purchasing  power  of  money  at  that  time  was 
twenty-four  or  twenty-five  times  as  great  as  it  is  at 
present,  we  can  conceive  how  the  heart  of  a  patriot 
would  be  stirred  at  this  despotic  and  robber-like  usur- 
pation of  the  papacy  upon  the  sovereign  rights  of  the 
English  crown,  and  this  shameless  financial  spoliation 
of  the  country  for  the  benefit  of  a  foreign  court.  Such 
rapacity  was  no  trifle.  Its  enormous  and  greedy  exac- 
tions fell,  where  all  taxes  fall,  upon  industry.  They 
withdrew  the  capital  which  supported  labor.  They 
persistently  bled  the  rank  and  file  of  the  people  whom 
Wiclif  loved,  and  in  whose  true  welfare,  both  temporal 
and  spiritual,  his  heart  and  soul  were  bound  up.  This, 
then,  first  of  all,  he  felt  to  be  God's  call  to  him,  John 
Wiclif.  Into  this  church  and  state  question  he  now 
threw  himself  with  all  the  weight  of  his  learning  and 
logic  and  devotion  to  truth  and  justice.  How  much 
he  personally  had  to  do  with  its  final  decision  perhaps 
can  never  be  known,  but  it  was  decided  finally  upon 
the  grounds  of  principles  which  he  had  personally 
adduced  and  defended  :  — 

When  the  demand  was  made  by  the  Pope  there  was 
coupled  with  it  an  alternative  as  insolent  as  the  de- 
three  thousand  knightly  holdings  on  the  national  register,  twenty- 
eight  thousand  belonged  to  Mother  Church  !  "  —  White's  Eighteen 
Christian  Cent.,  p.  359,  Eng.  ed. 
1  Hallam,  Middle  Ages,  chap,  ix.,  part  ii. 


THE  VOICE   OF  ENGLAND.  33 

mand  itself  was  extortionate.  Edward  was  apprised 
that  upon  failure  to  comply  he  "  would  be  cited  by 
process  to  appear  at  the  papal  court  to  answer  for  the 
default  to  his  civil  and  spiritual  sovereign ;  "  a  threat 
one  would  think  hardly  to  be  brooked  by  the  con- 
queror of  Crecy  and  the  acknowledged  hero  of  his 
time.  Without  making  any  personal  response,  how- 
ever, which  might  have  lowered  his  dignity,  the  king 
laid  the  matter  before  his  Parliament.  Their  answer 
was  sharp  and  conclusive.  It  is  spicy  reading  to-day. 
It  must  have  rung  down  at  the  Pope's  feet  like  the 
iron  gauntlet  of  the  indignant  king  ;  more  than  that, 
it  was  the  mailed  hand  of  incensed  England.  "  For- 
asmuch as  neither  King  John,  nor  any  other  king, 
could  bring  this  realm  and  kingdom  in  such  thralldom 
and  subjection  but  by  common  consent  of  Parliament, 
the  which  was  not  done  ;  therefore  that  which  he  did 
was  against  his  oath  at  coronation.  If,  therefore,  the 
Pope  should  attempt  anything  against  the  king  by 
process,  or  other  matters  in  deed,  the  king  with  all  his 
subjects  should,  with  all  their  force,  resist  the  same."  l- 
Here  was  Protestantism  with  a  vengeance  ;  the  thing 
itself  full-grown,  before  the  name  of  it  had  ever  been 
heard  of.  A  large  spark  it  was  that  Wiclif  had 
kindled.  Neither  Hus  nor  Luther  could  make  it 
much  brighter  or  fiercer  than  that.  It  was  in  fact  a 
national  renunciation  of  vassalage,  a  declaration  of 
independence  as  significant  and  as  fruitful  as  one  that 
was  to  be  made  four  hundred  years  later  by  sons  of 
these  same  men  not  yet  born,  in  a  city  not  yet  built, 
in  a  world  not  yet  known  to  exist. 

I  say  this  was  Wiclif 's  spark.    There  is  good  reason 
for  supposing  that  he  was  himself  a  member  of  this 

1  Le  Bas'  Life  of  Wiclif,  chap,  iii.,  p.  122. 
3 


34  WICLIF. 

Parliament.  He  has  left  on  record  a  r6sum£  of  the 
speeches  then  made  and  a  most  lucid  arrangement  of 
the  arguments  by  which  the  decision  was  supported. 
They  are  palpably  the  rescript  of  his  own  thought  and 
utterance.  They  read  like  the  "  Quorum  pars  fui" 
That  he  was  personally  identified  with  the  parliamen- 
tary measure,  and  regarded  as  largely  responsible  for 
the  result,  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  he  was  chal- 
lenged to  defend  the  action,  and  promptly  did  so  in  a 
way  that  quenched  his  adversary.  That  his  influence 
had  been  of  no  secondary  value  in  bringing  about  this 
result  is  still  further  attested  by  the  fact  that  the  king 
now  began  to  look  to  him  for  further  aud  more  honor- 
able service  of  a  political  nature.  Among  the  Romish 
abuses  there  was  one  that  had  long  been  heavy  and 
was  now  growing  heavier,  namely,  the  occupation  of 
benefices  by  foreigners.  When  a  vacancy  occurred  in 
any  clerical  or  collegiate  orifice,  it  had  long  been  the 
custom  on  the  part  of  the  Pope  to  appoint  some  fa- 
vorite from  the  continent  as  the  incumbent,  until  a 
very  large  proportion  of  such  places  were  now  held 
by  aliens.  It  was  well  enough  in  the  ruder  centuries 
when  England  could  not  raise  her  own  scholars,  but  as 
the  condition  of  things  had  now  changed  and  was  still 
brightening,  it  began  to  be  felt  as  an  injustice  and  a 
humiliation.  It  was  an  intolerable  insult  to  that  na- 
tional spirit  which  was  now  asserting  itself.  And  so 
in  1374  the  king  appointed  a  commission,  of  which 
Wiclif  was  a  prominent  member,  to  meet  at  Bruges 
and  confer  with  the  papal  authorities  about  the  abro- 
gation of  the  abuse  in  question.  They  had  full  power 
"to  conclude  such  a  treaty  as  should  at  once  secure 
the  honor  of  the  Church  and  uphold  the  rights  of  the 
English  crown  and  realm."  It  was  high  honor  for 


THE   CITY  OF  BRUGES.  35 

Wiclif  that  he  should  thus  have  been  matched  by  his 
sovereign  with  a  plenipotentiary  of  the  Pope.  It  in- 
dicated that  he  had  earned  the  highest  confidence  of 
the  monarch  for  his  sagacity  and  for  his  interest  in 
the  true  welfare  of  his  king  and  country.  It  made,  no 
doubt,  an  era  in  his  life.  It  certainly  was  the  pivot 
upon  which  he  swung  from  the  position  of  a  political 
to  that  of  a  more  distinctly  religious  reformer.  His 
visit  to  Bruges  was  in  some  respects  parallel,  it  has 
been  suggested,1  to  Luther's  famous  visit  to  Rome, 
nearly  a  century  and  a  half  later,  which  opened  his 
eyes  to  unsuspected  enormities  and  changed  the  cur- 
rent of  his  thought  and  feeling.  The  city  of  Bruges 
had  at  that  time  just  passed  into  the  hands  of  the 
dukes  of  Burgundy,  and  had  reached  the  very  summit 
of  prosperity.  It  was  the  commercial  centre  of  the 
world.  The  magnificence  of  its  court  surpassed  that 
of  any  European  monarch.  The  enormous  prosperity 
of  its  woolen  trade  gave  rise  to  the  chivalric  order  of 
the  Golden  Fleece.  The  argosies  of  Venice  and  Genoa 
brought  to  it  the  wealth  of  the  East,  and  ships  of  every 
land  discharged  their  cargoes  upon  its  quays.  Its 
public  buildings  were  magnificent.  In  this  very  cen- 
tury of  Wiclif's  visit  was  erected  that  famous  belfry 
which  our  Longfellow  immortalized,  and  whose  chimes 
the  reformer  may  have  been  among  the  very  first  to 
hear.  A  score  of  foreign  courts  had  their  ambassadors 
here.  The  toilet  and  costume  of  the  women  were  so 
superb  that  when  the  queen  of  Philip  the  Fair  of 
France  visited  the  city  she  was  piqued  at  being  as  but 
one  queen  among  a  hundred.  But  even  then,  as  the 
keen-eyed  Englishman  may  have  seen,  the  goodly  city 
was  hastening  to  its  decadence.  There  was  already 
1  By  Lechler,  i.,  p.  229. 


36  WICLIF. 

visible  the  moral  disintegration,  the  spiritual  degra- 
dation, which  the  papal  power  wrought  everywhere; 
visible  through  the  purple  and  golden  drapery,  the 
sure  prelude  of  disaster  and  decay.  For  two  years  the 
commission  was  busied  in  negotiating  with  the  papal 
plenipotentiaries,  but  with  little  or  no  success.  Eng- 
land was  worsted  in  the  treaty,  but  through  no  fault  of 
Wiclif ,  we  may  be  sure.  The  king  had  formed  his  com- 
mission on  the  plan  of  a  gridiron-pendulum,  in  which 
the  contraction  of  one  metal  counteracts  the  expansion 
of  the  other.  He  had  joined  with  Wiclif  a  bishop 
and  other  ecclesiastics  who  were  favorable  to  the  cause 
of  the  Pope,  and  so  the  crying  wrongs  remained  prac- 
tically unredressed.  But  Wiclif  came  home  to  Eng- 
land with  no  less  determination  to  keep  up  the  warfare 
to  which  he  had  committed  himself.  He  had  had  new 
experience  of  the  chicanery  and  treachery  of  Rome. 
He  had  come  face  to  face  with  her  diplomatists  and 
had  penetrated  their  disguises.  He  had  owned  in 
some  sort  hitherto  the  supremacy  of  the  papal  church ; 
henceforth  he  used  no  measured  terms  in  declaring 
her  iniquity  and  perfidy. 

That  he  had  been  faithful  to  the  interests  of  his 
sovereign  we  may  judge  from  the  fact  that  upon  his 
return  the  king  made  him  rector  of  Lutterworth, — 
the  village  which  is  forever  associated  henceforth  with 
his  name ;  where  he  taught  and  preached  and  trans- 
lated the  Bible,  and  peacefully  died. 

I  can  notice  but  one  more  event  in  looking  at  this 
political  aspect  of  his  life.  His  constant  labors  in 
behalf  of  the  independence  of  the  crown  and  the  free- 
dom of  the  people  from  foreign  exactions  drew  upon 
him  a  fierce  eruption  of  ecclesiastical  wrath.  In  1377 
he  was  cited  before  a  convocation  in  St.  Paul's  to 


THE  MENDICANTS.  37 

answer  to  the  charge  of  publishing  various  erroneous 
doctrines.  There  were  hot-heads  present  among  his 
friends,  notably  John  of  Gaunt,  Duke  of  Lancaster, 
as  well  as  among  his  enemies.  The  tribunal  was 
broken  up  by  a  personal  squabble  between  them  with- 
out Wiclif's  utterance  of  a  single  word.  But  the 
affair  was  not  to  end  thus.  A  list  of  charges  was 
drawn  up  and  sent  to  the  Pope,  who  forthwith  issued 
no  less  than  five  bulls,  three  of  them  addressed  to  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  the  Bishop  of  London, 
the  fourth  to  the  King,  and  the  fifth  to  the  University 
of  Oxford,  directing  them  to  inquire  into  the  opinions 
alleged  to  be  held  by  Wiclif ,  and  if  he  should  be  con- 
victed to  imprison  him  until  further  orders.  The  Pope 
demanded  thus  only  a  preliminary  inquiry,  reserving 
for  himself  the  process  for  heresy  proper.  Wiclif  now 
seemed  to  be  on  a  fair  way  to  the  stake.  But  man 
proposes,  and  the  Pope  was  only  man.  Before  the 
matter  could  be  brought  to  an  issue  Gregory  XI.  died, 
and  there  arose  the  famous  schism,  in  which  two  popes 
were  recognized,  —  Urban  VI.  by  England,  Clement 
VII.  by  France,  —  and  each  had  enough  to  do  to 
watch  and  anathematize  and  excommunicate  and  foil 
and  hate  the  other,  without  troubling  himself  with 
the  Heretic  of  Lutterworth. 

2.  As  a  religious  reformer  Wiclif  first  comes  be- 
fore us  only  towards  the  close  of  his  life.  In  1381, 
only  three  years  before  his  death,  he  enters  upon 
a  conflict  with  the  mendicant  monks.  There  were 
wandering  up  and  down  the  land  swarms  of  religious 
beggars,  —  tramps  they  would  be  called  now,  —  claim- 
ing to  be  living  the  Christly  life  in  a  self-imposed 
poverty,  and  yet  levying  a  most  burdensome  tax  upon 
the  patient  and  long-suffering  charity  of  the  people. 


38  WICLIF. 

Of  course  they  were  priests,  and  they  took  every  ad- 
vantage of  the  superstitious  reverence  with  which, 
among  the  common  people,  the  clerical  office  was 
regarded.  They  preached  and  taught  in  every  parish, 
with  all  the  authority  of  the  rector  himself.  They 
listened  to  confession,  and  gave  absolution  wherever 
there  was  a  hand  outstretched  with  money.  If  a 
crime  had  been  secretly  committed  it  could  be  con- 
fessed to  these  monks,  who  came  from  nowhere  and 
went  nowhere,  absolution  granted,  conscience  appeased, 
and  no  restraining  influence  left  upon  the  criminal, 
where  it  was  most  needed,  in  the  knowledge  of  any 
one  in  the  immediate  locality  of  the  offense.  "  Let 
us  follow  our  own  pleasure,"  said  men  disposed  to  evil. 
"  Some  one  of  the  preaching  brothers  will  soon  travel 
this  way,  —  one  whom  we  never  saw  before,  and  never 
shall  see  again,  —  so  that  when  we  have  had  our  will 
we  can  confess  without  trouble  or  annoyance."  1  The 
consequence  of  all  this  was,  that  being  no  longer  com- 
pelled to  blush  in  the  presence  of  their  local  ministers, 
they  broke  out  into  unbridled  licentiousness.  These 
vagrant  clerics  intruded  themselves  into  every  home, 
and  oftentimes  transgressed  the  home's  dearest  sancti- 
ties, and  made  light  of  its  most  sacred  relationships. 
They  traded,  as  Chaucer  tells  us,  in  pigs'  bones,  and 
innumerable  other  equally  holy  and  equally  useless 
relics.  They  were  a  swarm  of  gypsies,  protected  in 
their  petty  knaveries  by  a  clerical  garb,  and  shielded 
by  the  authentication  of  the  Church.  The  mendicant 
orders  had  been  originally  instituted  a  hundred  years 
before,  when  monastic  institutions  had  expanded  into 
castles  of  luxury,  for  the  laudable  object  of  exhibiting 
to  the  world  an  illustration  of  primitive  Christian 
1  Le  Bas,  ch.  iii.  p.  109. 


THE  MENDICANTS.  39 

simplicity  and  self-denial.  They  had  then  been  hon- 
orable, as  doubtless  they  were  in  the  main  sincere 
and  devout.  But  they  deteriorated  as  soon  as  they 
began  to  be  honored.  As  various  privileges  were  be- 
stowed upon  them  their  numbers  naturally  multi- 
plied. It  was  pleasant  to  be  regarded  with  favor  by 
pope  and  by  people  and  yet  lead  the  easy  life  of  de- 
pendence, taking  a  living  from  the  charity  which 
deemed  it  an  honor  to  have  its  gifts  received.  The 
orders,  of  course,  increased  with  great  rapidity.  They 
became  arrogant,  as  beggars  will  when  giving  has 
become  the  rule.  Moreover,  these  barefoot  friars, 
do-nothings,  who  professed  that  to  them  ownership  of 
property  was  an  accursed  thing,  by  some  hocus-pocus 
managed  to  get  wealth  and  yet  feel  no  qualms.  The 
institution  had  grown  into  the  proportions  of  a  gigantic 
fraud.  They  became  utterly  shameless  in  belying  the 
fundamental  principles  of  their  orders.  "  It  is  matter 
of  melancholy  presage,"  says  a  chronicler  of  the  time, 
"  that  these  friars  have  piled  up  their  mansions  to  a 
royal  altitude.  They  exhibit  inestimable  treasures 
within  their  spacious  edifices.  They  beset  the  dying 
bed  of  the  noble  and  the  wealthy,  in  order  to  extort 
secret  bequests  from  the  fears  of  guilt  or  superstition. 
As  the  agents  of  papal  extortion,  they  are  incessantly 
applying  the  arts  of  flattery,  the  stings  of  rebuke, 
or  the  terrors  of  confession."  Such  were  the  poor 
brethren,  —  the  holy  mendicants. 

Their  preaching  was  as  villainous  as  their  practice ; 
a  medley  of  ancient  legends  and  fabulous  tales  and 
grotesque  riddles,  interspersed  with  vilification  of  the 
regular  priesthood  and  praises  of  mendicancy. 

Such  a  shameful  abuse  could  not  exist  in  the  same 
kingdom  with  Wiclif  and  he  remain  silent.  His  pen 


40  WICLIF. 

and  his  tongue  were  unsparing  and  unwearied.  He 
lashes,  mocks,  ridicules,  lampoons  them  unmercifully. 
His  words  sting  and  cut.  He  lays  bare  their  hypoc- 
risy and  pretense.  He  shows  the  people  their  extor- 
tion, and  the  worthlessness  of  their  relics  and  their 
pardons.  They  are,  he  says,  the  tail  of  the  Apocalyp- 
tic dragon.  He  writes  a  book  against  them  in  fifty 
chapters,  every  chapter  a  fusillade  of  truth  set  on  fire 
with  indignation. 

But  it  was  not  in  Wiclif's  nature  to  tear  down  with- 
out building  up.  He  drives  out  the  bad,  not  to  leave 
a  vacuum,  but  to  put  the  good  in  its  place.  Never 
was  more  faithful,  more  simple  and  practical  preacher 
than  he.  The  Word  of  God  is  the  one  substance  he 
declares  of  true  preaching:  "The  sower  soweth  the 
Word."  Out  of  false  preaching  comes  the  spiritual 
deadness  of  the  people.  These  friars  are  preaching 
falsehoods  and  living  a  falsehood,  and  out  of  false- 
hood nothing  but  falsehood  can  come.  Indeed,  there 
could  be  given  in  our  theological  schools  of  the  pres- 
ent day  no  better  rules  for  ministerial  training  than 
the  thoughts  of  this  old  master  of  five  hundred  years 
ago  upon  what  to  preach  and  how  to  preach  it.  "  It 
is  God's  Word  that  should  be  preached,  for  God's 
Word  is  the  bread  of  souls,  the  indispensable,  whole- 
some bread  ;  and  therefore  to  feed  the  flock  in  a  spir- 
itual sense  without  Bible-truth  is  the  same  thing  as 
if  one  were  to  prepare  for  another  a  bodily  meal  with- 
out bread.  God's  Word  is  the  life-seed  which  begets 
regeneration  and  spiritual  life.  Now  the  chief  busi- 
ness of  a  preacher  is  to  beget  and  to  nourish  up  mem- 
bers of  the  Church.  Therefore  it  is  God's  Word  he 
must  preach;  then  only  will  he  succeed  in  his  aims." 
And  the  how  he  says  must  be  suitable  to  the  what, 


THE  POOR  PRIESTS.  41 

The  soul  and  the  life  of  the  preacher  must  be  in  tune 
with  the  words,  or  the  words  can  have  no  power. 

All  of  which  Wiclif  illustrated  in  his  own  preaching 
and  life.  As  we  read  these  words  we  may  well  believe 
the  tradition  that  it  was  this  very  man  that  Chaucer 
had  in  mind  when  he  wrote  of  the  good  parson,  — 

"  a  clerk 

That  Christ's  pure  gospel  would  sincerely  preach 
And  his  parishioners  devoutly  teach. 

This  noble  ensample  to  his  flock  he  gave, 
That  first  he  wrought  and  afterward  he  taught 
The  word  of  life  he  from  the  gospel  caught." 

Thoroughly  convinced  of  the  power  of  simple  truth 
rightly  taught  and  devoutly  lived,  Wiclif  conceived 
the  idea  of  sending  forth  through  the  land  a  company 
of  honest  and  godly  men,  who  without  special  eccle- 
siastical training  should  tell  the  gospel  story  to  the 
people.  Thus  originated  the  poor  priests.  It  was  not 
unlike  the  scheme  of  Wesley  almost  within  present 
memory.  "These  men  went  forth  in  long  garments 
of  coarse  red  woolen  cloth,  barefoot  and  staff  in  hand 
in  order  to  represent  themselves  as  pilgrims  and  their 
wayfaring  as  a  kind  of  pilgrimage,  their  coarse  woolen 
dress  being  a  symbol  of  their  poverty  and  toil.  Thus 
they  wandered  from  village  to  village,  through  the 
kingdom,  without  stop  or  rest,  preaching,  teaching, 
warning,  wherever  they  could  find  willing  hearers, 
sometimes  in  church  or  chapel,  wherever  any  such 
stood  open  for  prayer  and  quiet  devotion ;  sometimes 
in  the  church-yard  when  they  found  the  church  itself 
closed ;  and  sometimes  in  the  public  street  or  market- 
place." l  They  had  all  gone  forth  from  Wiclif 's 
1  Lechler,  i,  310. 


42  WICLIF. 

school ;  they  were  filled  with  Wiclif' s  spirit,  and  Wic- 
lif's  one  aim  was  theirs :  to  give  the  people  the  pure 
Word  of  God. 

Thus  Wiclif  fought  the  mendicants  and  they  never 
recovered  in  England  from  that  day  to  this. 

It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  Wiclif 's  work  was 
mainly  of  a  political  and  ethical  kind,  but  he  bore 
also  decidedly  important  relations  to  Protestant  the- 
ology, relations  which  will  doubtless  be  more  fully  rec- 
ognized when  his  writings  are  brought  to  light.  The 
paramount  authority  of  Scripture  was  certainly  as 
fully  and  boldly  asserted  by  him  as  it  ever  was  in 
later  times  by  Luther  himself.  Perhaps  Milton  in 
his  "  Areopagitica "  did  not  claim  too  much  for  him 
when  he  said :  "  Had  it  not  been  the  obstinate  per- 
verseness  of  our  prelates  against  the  divine  and  admi- 
rable spirit  of  Wiclif  to  suppress  him  as  a  schismatic 
and  innovator,  perhaps  neither  the  Bohemian  Hus  and 
Jerom,  no,  nor  the  name  of  Luther  or  of  Calvin,  had 
been  ever  known  :  the  glory  of  reforming  all  our  neigh- 
bors had  been  completely  ours."  * 

3.  Of  course  his  work  as  a  reformer  runs  into  and 
pervades  his  literary  labors.  In  the  forefront  of  these 
labors  must  stand  that  monumental  endeavor  to  give 
the  whole  Bible  to  his  countrymen  in  their  own  lan- 
guage ;  an  endeavor  which  occupied  the  closing  years 
of  his  life,  and  which  binds  that  life  up  into  unity  as 
with  a  clasp  of  pure  gold.  How  vast  his  other  liter- 
ary work  was,  I  have  already  intimated.  There  are 
extant  still  scores  of  works  written  by  him,  filled  with 
various  learning,  no  man  can  say  exactly  how  numer- 
ous, the  majority  of  them  as  yet  unprinted,  and  even 

1  Areopagitica.  Milton's  Prose  Works,  vol.  ii.,  p.  91,  Bonn's 
edition.  See,  also,  Fisher's  Reformation,  p.  60. 


BENEFACTION  TO  LITERATURE.  43 

untranslated.  They  remain  as  they  left  his  pen  or 
the  pens  of  his  disciples,  for  the  most  part  in  the  Im- 
perial Library  of  Vienna.1  They  played  their  unknown 
part  in  that  great  reformation,  and  we  are  enjoying 
their  untraceable  results  to-day.  We  drink  many  a 
refreshing  draught  without  knowing  what  mountain's 
summit  caught  it  from  the  heavens  or  what  stream 
forwarded  it  to  our  cup.  But  that  this  man  opened 
the  Bible  first  to  our  English  fathers  we  know ;  and 
our  Christian  days  and  institutions,  and  our  noble  lit- 
erature are  all  saturated  with  the  imperishable  results 
of  his  toil.  We  cannot  put  it  into  words,  we  cannot 
even  measure  it  in  our  thought.  The  Bible  that  we 
read  to-day  does  not  look  to  our  eyes  like  the  page  of 
Wiclif ;  the  men  of  the  fourteenth  century  would  have 
as  great  difficulty  in  reading  it  as  we  have  in  decipher- 
ing their  rude  and  grotesque  utterance.  But  his  work 
underlies  and  supports  the  precious  superstructure 
through  which  we  walk  as  by  still  waters,  or  in  which 
we  lie  down  as  in  green  pastures,  even  as  the  rough 
granite  underlies  all  nature's  quiet  beauty  or  impressive 
sublimity.  The  work  of  this  man  underlies  the  lisping 
utterance  of  the  infant  scholar  who  repeats  "  The  Lord 
is  my  shepherd  "  in  our  own  dear  English  speech,  as 
that  granite  makes  possible  the  nodding  daisy  or  the 
flower  of  grass.  And  that  work  too  is,  as  I  said,  in  all 
our  literature.  It  did  more  than  anything  else  to 

1  Since  the  above  was  written,  it  has  come  to  my  notice  that 
a  society  of  English  and  German  scholars  has  undertaken  to 
edit  the  complete  works  of  Wiclif,  and  give  them  to  the  world. 
Some  portion  of  them  has  already  appeared.  It  is  greatly  to 
the  credit  of  Christian  scholarship  that  it  thus  marks  the  com- 
pletion of  five  centuries  since  the  reformer's  death,  as  greatly  to 
its  shame  that  it  has  delayed  the  work  so  long. 


44  WICLIF. 

form  and  fix  our  English  speech.  Your  newspaper  to- 
morrow morning  would  not  have  been  possible  with- 
out it.  It  was  the  seed  out  of  which  our  libraries  have 
grown.  It  has  made  the  common  mind  intelligent. 
It  has  made  the  peasant  the  peer  of  the  priest.  It 
was  the  quickening  of  that  national  thought  which 
has  blossomed  and  fruited  in  Bacon  and  Milton  and 
Shakespeare,  in  Mrs.  Browning  and  George  Eliot,  in 
Thackeray  and  Hawthorne.  Better  than  all  this,  it 
was  the  liberation  of  Christian  faith  and  hope.  It  un- 
bound these  twin  sisters  to  go  wherever  there  should  be 
English  homes,  to  brighten  and  bless  them ;  wherever 
there  should  be  English  toil,  to  dignify  it ;  wherever 
there  should  be  English  graves,  to  tell  of  the  Resurrec- 
tion and  the  Life.  In  one  final  word,  Wiclif's  trans- 
lation of  the  Bible  was,  for  the  English-speaking  race 
around  the  world,  the  second  Resurrection.  The  day 
of  its  completion  was  the  Easter  day  of  the  English 
language. 

The  reformer  died  in  peace,  December  31,  1384. 
Long  years  after,  impotent  malice  dug  up  his  bones 
and  burnt  them,  a  confession  at  once  both  of  malice 
and  of  impotence.  The  Word  of  the  Lord  endureth 
forever. 


III. 

JOHN  HUS. 
A.  D.  1373-1416. 

IN  the  lonely  struggle  of  duty,  the  inevitable  loss  of  human  aid  must  be 
replaced  by  our  affinity  with  God.  He  that  invented  human  virtue,  and 
breathed  into  us  our  private  veneration  for  its  greatness ;  He  that  loves 
the  martyr-spirit,  scorning  suffering  for  the  sake  of  truth;  He  that  be- 
holds in  every  faithful  mind  the  reflection  of  Himself;  He  that  hath  built 
an  everlasting  world,  at  once  the  shelter  of  victorious  goodness  and  the 
theatre  of  its  yet  nobler  triumphs,  enwraps  us  in  His  immensity,  and  sus- 
tains us  by  His  love.— JAMES  MAKTINEAU,  The  Strength  of  the  Lonely. 


III. 

JOHN  HUS. 
A.  D.  1373-1416. 

As  we  look  upon  a  historical  map,  representing  the 
Europe  of  the  Middle  Ages,  no  obvious  relation  is 
suggested  as  existing  between  the  island  of  Great 
Britain  and  a  little  state  in  the  heart  of  continental 
Europe,  called  Bohemia.  There  seems  to  be  but  one 
point  of  resemblance  even,  and  that  somewhat  fanci- 
ful :  Britain  is  insulated  by  water,  and  Bohemia  is 
isolated  by  a  surrounding  wall  of  mountains.  The 
latter  country,  indeed,  is  not  unlike  a  vast  natural  for- 
tification, lying  four-square,  with  its  angles  closely 
coinciding  with  the  cardinal  points  of  the  compass. 
This  great  square  mountain  embankment,  perfectly 
unbroken  save  a  little  opening  or  gateway  in  the 
southeast  into  Moravia,  incloses  an  area  of  nearly 
twenty  thousand  square  miles ;  so  that  if  you  were  to 
take  a  map  of  New  England  and  look  at  it  diagonally, 
the  two  States  of  New  Hampshire  and  Vermont,  taken 
together,  would  resemble  Bohemia  in  shape,  and  would 
not  materially  differ  from  it  in  superficial  measure- 
ment. But  this  fanciful  point  of  resemblance  which 
I  have  noticed  between  the  isolation  of  Bohemia  and 
the  insulation  of  Great  Britain  is  not  so  fanciful  as 
to  have  been  unproductive  of  other  and  very  real  re- 
semblances which  the  map  does  not  suggest.  As  far 


48  JOHN  HUS. 

back  as  the  times  of  which  we  are  to  treat,  and  be- 
yond, this  seclusion  had  favored  the  development  of 
a  strong  and  vigorous  national  spirit,  not  inferior  to 
that  which  sprang  up  in  England  during  the  three 
or  four  centuries  after  the  Norman  Conquest.  Indeed, 
similar  developments  were  taking  place  at  the  same 
time  in  the  two  countries.  In  both,  the  national  lan- 
guage was  beginning  to  assert  itself  in  literature,  in 
religion,  and  in  law.  In  both,  the  patriotic  spirit,  jeal- 
ous of  foreign  influence  and  confident  in  its  own  re- 
sources, was  creating  a  literature  of  its  own,  and  was 
demanding  that,  instead  of  Latin  and  German  and 
Norman,  the  English  and  the  Bohemian  should  be  the 
language  of  the  churches  and  the  courts.  The  Bible 
had  been  translated  into  Bohemian  two  or  three  years 
before  Wiclif  gave  it  to  his  countrymen  in  English. 
And  in  both  countries,  as  we  shall  see,  the  liberation 
of  the  Scriptures  produced  the  same  results.  And 
with  all  this,  the  mountains  round  about  Bohemia  and 
the  waters  round  about  England  had  very  much  to  do. 
Both  were  "  accessible  enough  to  all  that  was  good, 
useful,  and  improving ;  "  and  yet  both  were  "  so  far 
secluded  by  nature  as  to  encourage  the  patriotic  pur- 
pose of  maintaining  and  cherishing  their  own  proper 
character,  customs,  and  institutions."  l 

But  besides  these  resemblances,  fanciful  and  real, 
between  the  two  countries,  and  their  progress  in  na- 
tional development,  there  was  a  real  connection  be- 
tween them  so  close,  that  the  events  of  the  fifteenth 
century  in  Bohemia  must  be  regarded  as  the  direct 
results  of  the  fourteenth  century  in  England.  John 
Wiclif  was  spiritually  the  progenitor  of  John  Hus ; 
and  the  Hussite  movement  in  Central  Europe,  six  hun- 
1  Dr.  Gillett. 


ANNE   OF  BOHEMIA.  49 

dred  miles  away  from  England  as  the  bird  flies,  was 
as  certainly  impelled  by  the  Wicliffian  movement  in 
Oxford,  as  the  little  chronometer  in  a  jeweler's  win- 
dow on  Washington  Street  is  driven  by  an  electric  im- 
pulse from  the  observatory  clock  in  Cambridge.  And 
what  was  the  inconspicuous  wire  through  which  this 
far-off  influence  was  exerted  ? 

In  1382,  two  years  before  the  death  of  Wiclif,  King 
Richard  II.  of  England  had  married  Anne  of  Bohe- 
mia, daughter  of  the  Emperor  Charles  IV.  Thus  was 
established  a  close  relationship  between  the  two  king- 
doms. For  twelve  years  Anne  lived  in  England,  and 
during  that  time  imbibed  the  sentiments  of  Wiclif, 
and  fostered  the  reforms  which  he  inaugurated.  The 
ladies  of  her  court,  largely  drawn,  of  course,  from  her 
own  people,  shared  her  religious  sympathies ;  and 
when  she  died  in  1394,  ten  years  after  Wiclif's  death, 
they  returned  to  Bohemia,  carrying  not  only  their  sen- 
timents, but  many  copies  of  his  books.  The  writings 
of  the  English  reformer  were  thus  introduced  into  Bo- 
hemia under  the  best  auspices,  which  accounts  for  the 
fact,  noticed  in  the  last  lecture,  that  great  numbers  of 
Wiclif's  works  are  still  preserved  in  manuscript  in  the 
Imperial  Library  at  Vienna. 

There  was  another  channel  through  which  the  Eng- 
lish reformer's  influence  was  powerfully  exerted  upon 
the  distant  little  kingdom.  In  1348  Anne's  father, 
Charles  IV.,  had  founded  the  University  of  Prague, 
which  became  almost  immediately,  under  the  imperial 
favor,  in  wealth  and  numbers  and  influence,  the  fore- 
most university  of  continental  Europe,  with  the  sin- 
gle exception  of  that  of  Paris.  Between  the  univer- 
sities of  that  day  there  was  constant  and  rapid  com- 
munication. A  common  language,  the  Latin,  was  in 


50  JOHN  HUS. 

use  in  all  the  lecture-rooms.  In  it  all  scholarly  inter- 
course was  conducted.  The  students  moved  freely 
from  one  university  to  another,  and  the  professors 
could  be  equally  well  understood  by  all,  whatever  their 
nationality.  A  student  needed  to  learn  no  new  lan- 
guage in  going  from  the  lectures  of  Wiclif  at  Oxford, 
to  those  of  Gerson  at  Paris,  or  to  those  of  Hiibner 
at  Prague.  This  free  student  movement  thus  did  for 
its  time  what  the  printing-press  came  to  accomplish 
more  rapidly  and  more  thoroughly  a  century  later. 
Thus,  even  before  Anne's  death,  Wiclif's  writings 
made  as  much  noise  and  came  to  be  almost  as  well 
known  in  Bohemia  as  in  England. 

And  one  other  preliminary  fact  needs  to  be  noted. 
In  her  endurance  of  the  evils  which  Wiclif  combated, 
England  was  not  an  exceptional  sufferer.  The  same 
curse  of  mendicancy  prevailed  throughout  Christen- 
dom. Continental  as  well  as  insular  Europe  was 
burdened  with  papal  exactions.  The  Church  every- 
where was  distracted  by  the  claims  of  rival  popes,  and 
disgraced  by  the  perfunctoriness  and  avarice  of  its 
priesthood.  The  satires  of  Chaucer  and  the  complaint 
of  Piers  Plowman  might  as  well  have  been  written 
in  French  or  German  as  in  English,  and  they  would 
have  met  with  as  true  and  hearty  an  echo  from  the 
popular  feeling.  In  various  ways  the  thoughts  and 
discussions  of  teachers  and  students  percolated  down- 
wards through  the  minds  of  the  people  at  large,  just 
as  they  do  now.  The  popular  mind  is  quick  at 
receiving  hints  and  suggestions ;  and  exaggerated  as 
individual  ideas  may  be,  the  average  opinion  soon 
settles  to  something  like  the  level  of  the  truth.  An 
illustration  is  recorded  in  one  of  the  Hussite  chron- 
icles. Two  English  students  from  Oxford  make  their 


THE  PICTURE   ON  THE   TAVERN  WALLS.     51 

way  to  Bohemia  to  attend  lectures  at  the  University 
of  Prague.  They  are  hot  from  the  teachings  of  Wiclif , 
or  some  of  his  disciples.  Stopping  at  an  inn  in  the 
outskirts  of  the  city,  they  persuade  the  host  to  per- 
mit them  to  paint  a  picture  upon  his  walls.  On  this 
side  one  of  them  delineates  a  representation  of  the 
Saviour  in  his  humble  entrance  into  Jerusalem,  seated 
upon  an  ass,  poor  people  casting  their  garments  in  the 
way,  little  children  scattering  leaves  and  branches  be- 
fore him,  and  his  disciples  in  humble  guise  and  bare- 
foot following  behind.  On  that  side  of  the  room  the 
other  student  draws  the  picture  of  a  papal  procession  ; 
the  head  of  the  church  mounted  on  a  magnificent 
charger  and  wearing  the  triple  crown,  his  raiment 
and  the  trappings  of  his  horse  studded  with  jewels, 
soldiers  going  before  to  clear  the  way,  and  following 
on,  a  company  of  scarlet  cardinals  only  less  gorgeous 
than  their  master.  It  was  a  sermon  in  the  universal 
language  which  every  guest  of  the  inn  could  read,  and 
the  significance  of  which  the  wayfaring  man,  though  a 
fool,  could  hardly  misapprehend.  This  was  the  hint, 
doubtless,  which,  more  than  a  hundred  years  after- 
ward, Luther  and  his  artist-friend  Cranach  expanded 
into  that  series  of  pictures  which  they  called  the 
Antithesis,  and  which  wrought  in  a  similar  way  for 
the  progress  of  the  Reformation  among  the  people  of 
Germany. 

It  is  supposed  that  John  Hus  derived  his  name  from 
a  village  in  Southern  Bohemia,  Husinec,  where  he 
was  born,  July  6,  1373.  His  early  days  were  passed 
under  the  tuition  of  the  monks  in  the  monastery  of 
his  native  village ;  and  when  they  could  carry  his  edu- 
cation no  farther  he  entered  the  hi^h  school  of  a 

O 

neighboring  town,  where  he  completed  his  preparatory 


52  JOHN  HUS. 

studies.  Meantime  his  father  had  died,  leaving  little 
to  the  mother  but  the  boy  with  his  bright  mind  and 
eager  hopes.  His  love  of  learning  was  insatiable, 
and  when  he  returned  home  from  the  high  school, 
and  the  widowed  mother  propounded  to  him  the  ques- 
tion, "  What  shall  we  do  now,  my  son  ?  "  his  answer 
was  ready.  "  I  am  going  to  Prague,  mother :  God 
will  take  care  of  us."  The  mother's  piety  had  inspired 
that  of  her  son,  and  she  was  now  nothing  behind  him 
in  her  faith.  She  had  nothing  to  give  him  but  her 
blessing  and  her  prayers ;  he  must  make  his  way  alone 
by  the  help  of  God.  Full  of  maternal  solicitude,  how- 
ever, for  the  boy,  who  had  never  been  farther  away 
from  home  than  the  neighboring  village,  and  who  was 
now  about  to  enter  upon  scenes  so  strange  and  full 
perchance  of  unknown  peril,  the  good  woman  deter- 
mined to  go  with  her  boy  to  the  capital,  and  personally 
commend  him  to  the  care  of  the  rector  of  the  univer- 
sity. We  are  told  that  when  Hannah,  the  mother  of 
the  Prophet  Samuel,  took  her  boy  up  to  present  him 
in  the  house  of  the  Lord  in  Shiloh,  she  took  with  her 
a  gift  of  three  bullocks,  an  ephah  of  flour,  and  a 
bottle  of  wine.  The  poor  Bohemian  mother  could 
take  no  such  munificent  offering.  But  out  of  her 
poverty  she  took  as  an  offering  to  the  rector  a  cake 
and  a  goose.  I  do  not  suppose  she  intended  any  pun 
upon  the  name  Hus,  which  means  goose,  but  it 
probably  was  all  she  had  to  give.  On  the  way  the 
goose  escaped  and  could  not  be  recaptured,  which 
filled  the  poor  woman's  mind  with  a  double  grief : 
first,  that  now  she  had  only  her  one  poor  cake  to  offer 
to  the  rector,  and  then,  that,  being  not  entirely  free 
from  the  superstition  of  her  age,  the  loss  of  the  goose 
seemed  to  her  an  ill-omen  of  the  fortunes  of  her  son. 


A   DROP  TN   THE  RIVER.  53 

But  her  religion  was  of  that  simple  and  very  exalted 
sort  which  knows  a  ready  refuge  from  all  fears,  and 
so,  falling  upon  her  knees  then  and  there,  she  com- 
mended the  boy  to  the  Father  of  the  fatherless,  and 
the  two  journeyed  on. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  retrospects  of  history  furnish 
us  with  many  such  scenes  as  that :  the  poor,  but  gentle 
and  loving  mother  clinging  so  fondly  to  her  boy  that 
she  could  not  let  him  set  off  alone  to  the  great  univer- 
sity town,  but  must  walk  with  him  all  the  way.  I 
imagine  them  walking  together,  a  quaint  couple  in  their 
peasant  guise,  beguiling  the  weary  distance  by  their 
chat  of  days  gone  and  days  to  come,  of  memories  and 
hopes,  stopping  now  and  then  to  offer  their  devotions 
at  some  wayside  shrine,  glad  when  night  came  to  find 
the  shelter  of  some  rude  inn,  or,  if  that  was  not  to  be 
had,  too  poor  to  have  any  fears,  lying  out  under  the 
roof  of  the  great  Father's  house.  How  differently 
men  must  have  read  their  future  from  the  way  that 
angels  were  reading  it ! 

Antecedently,  we  would  not  expect  any  very  notice- 
able results  to  follow  from  taking  up  a  country  lad, 
sixteen  years  of  age,  and  dropping  him  down  into  a 
great  and  splendid  university  where  were  gathered 
thousands  of  students  from  every  nation  of  Europe.1 
Very  much  like  letting  fall  one  drop  more  into  the 
ever  changing  river.  But  this  drop  was  charged 
with  a  power  and  a  personality  which  would  not  ad- 
mit of  its  being  swallowed  up.  Its  influence  pene- 
trated and  spread,  and  yet  kept  itself  distinct.  John 

1  Authorities  differ  widely  as  to  the  number  of  students  in 
Prague  at  this  time,  some  putting  it  as  high  as  forty  thousand  and 
upwards,  others  as  low  as  five  thousand,  or  even  less.  See  an 
article  by  Henry  Rogers,  in  Good  Words,  January,  1866. 


54  JOHN  HUS. 

Hus  was  more  even  to  the  university  than  the  uni- 
versity could  be  to  John  Hus.  The  diamond  is  more 
than  the  setting.  We  cannot  follow  him  through  his 
university  career  from  one  degree  to  another.  It  was 
a  brightening  way  over  which  he  passed,  until  in  his 
twenty-eighth  year  he  was  made  dean  of  the  theolog- 
ical faculty,  and  one  year  later  became  rector  of  the 
university,  filling  now  the  very  place  of  that  reverend 
man  to  whom  the  mother  had  brought  her  boy  thir- 
teen years  before  with  her  simple  offering  of  a  cake. 
One  single  incident  of  these  student  days  reveals  the 
stuff  that  was  in  him.  Truth  seemed  to  him  the  one 
precious  thing,  for  which  everything  else  might  be 
profitably  hazarded,  —  the  pearl  of  great  price.  One 
day,  having  read  the  story  of  St.  Lawrence,  who  was 
roasted  to  death  on  a  gridiron,  he  asks  himself  the 
question,  "Does  the  truth  mean  as  much  to  me  as 
that  ?  Would  I  be  willing  to  pay  the  price  ? "  A 
companion  doubts  his  devotion,  and  into  the  fire  goes 
his  hand  up  to  the  wrist,  only  to  be  saved  by  the  for- 
cible interference  of  his  friend,  who  doubts  his  con- 
stancy no  longer. 

It  was  in  his  pulpit  that  Hus's  work  was  mainly  done 
and  his  influence  chiefly  exerted.  His  name  is  associ- 
ated with  the  Bethlehem  Chapel  more  intimately  than 
Wiclif's  is  with  the  church  at  Lutterworth.  "Its 
pulpit,"  said  one  of  his  Jesuitical  enemies,  speaking 
of  the  Bethlehem  Chapel,  "  Its  pulpit  is  John  Hus's 
triumphal  chariot,  and  the  paintings  upon  the  walls 
are  the  blazonry  of  his  armor."  The  force  which  he 
personally  added  to  the  great  Reformation  movement 
was  not  of  a  theological  so  much  as  of  a  moral  and 
spiritual  kind.  It  was  principally  by  the  preaching 
of  righteousness  rather  than  by  any  attacks  upon  an 


BETHLEHEM  CHAPEL.  55 

erroneous  system  of  belief,  or  any  attempts  at  chang- 
ing the  formal  confession  of  the  Church.  It  was  the 

O 

life  of  men  around  him  that  he  sought  to  purify  and 
elevate,  and  so  to  modify  the  life  of  the  Church  within, 
rather  than  to  change  its  formularies.  He  was  always 
combating  sin  rather  than  heresy ;  and  men  who  per- 
sistently do  that,  will  always  run  the  risk  of  being 
accused  of  heresy,  and,  if  the  age  will  allow,  of  being 
burned  for  it  by  those  who  set  orthodoxy  of  thought 
above  correctness  of  life.  Theologically,  Hus  was 
never  the  heretic  that  Wiclif  was;  he  was  at  first 
apparently  indifferent  to  the  sentence  pronounced 
upon  Wiclif 's  books  by  the  council  of  the  university. 
Indeed,  in  one  case  at  least,  he  unhesitatingly  pro- 
nounced a  writing  of  the  Englishman  heretical,  and 
advised  his  friend  Jerome  to  burn  it  or  throw  it  into 
the  Moldau.  But  he  felt  along  with  the  English  re- 
former, in  relation  to  the  evils  of  the  times,  the  cor- 
ruptions of  the  church,  the  absurd  pretensions  of  the 
popes,  the  dishonesty  of  ecclesiasticism,  and  the  moral 
and  spiritual  indifference  of  men  around  him.  It  was 
for  fighting  these  things  that  he  gave  up  his  life  at 
last.  And  the  fight  was  chiefly  conducted  in  the  pul- 
pit of  Bethlehem  Chapel.  And  what  was  Bethlehem 
Chapel? 

A  few  years  previously  two  wealthy  citizens  of 
Prague,  inspired,  perhaps,  by  the  fact  that  the  Bible 
had  just  been  translated  into  the  national  tongue, 
desired  that  there  might  be  some  place  where  the 
Word  of  God  might  be  preached  independently  of  the 
cumbrous  order  of  the  church  service,  —  not  a  place 
for  masses  and  for  music,  but  simply  a  sacred  audi- 
torium, where  the  people  could  come  together  to  be 
instructed  in  religious  truth.  And  so  they  built  this 


56  JOHN  HUS. 

large  and  beautiful  house,  and  called  it  by  the  signifi- 
cant name  Bethlehem,  —  the  house  of  bread.  And  a 
house  of  bread  it  truly  was  from  the  time  that  Hus 
was  inducted  into  its  pulpit  in  the  year  1402,  when  he 
was  twenty-nine  years  of  age,  until,  ten  years  later,  he 
went  forth  a  wanderer  under  the  ban. 

Hus  was  now  filling  a  position,  or  rather  several 
positions,  of  peculiar  power  and  influence.  He  was 
rector  of  the  university,  and  thus  capable  of  reaching 
an  intelligent  and  thinking  multitude  large  enough  in 
itself  to  constitute  the  population  of  a  very  respectable 
city,  —  a  population,  too,  which  had  its  vital  connec- 
tion with  all  thinking  Europe.  Through  these  students 
he  was  touching  the  remoter  parts  of  the  continent. 
At  the  same  time  he  was  confessor  to  Queen  Sophia 
of  Bavaria,  second  wife  to  King  Wenzel  of  Bohemia, 
a  woman  of  strong  mind  and  high  character,  who  was 
both  wise  and  good  enough  to  appreciate  the  wisdom 
and  goodness  of  her  chaplain.  He  was  thus  brought 
into  familiar  relations  with  many  people  of  great  in- 
fluence among  the  Bohemian  and  Bavarian  nobility. 
And  finally,  he  was  appealing,  as  no  other  man  in  all 
Bohemia  did  or  could,  to  the  awakened  national  spirit, 
to  the  growing  patriotism  of  the  people,  by  his  con- 
tinual and  eloquent  discourses  in  their  own  language 
in  the  Bethlehem  pulpit,  where  he  ruled  the  thought 
of  the  masses  like  a  king  upon  his  throne.  He  was, 
in  truth,  mightier  than  the  archbishop,  mightier  in 
some  ways  than  the  king  himself,  as  both  king  and 
archbishop  in  due  time  discovered. 

Now  when  a  man  is  raised  to  such  a  position  of 
power  and  such  a  degree  of  popularity  as  a  preacher, 
one  of  two  things  will  be  likely  to  come  of  it.  If  his 
conscience  is  larger  than  his  vanity,  he  will  become  a 


USES    WICLIF  >S   THUNDER.  57 

martyr  to  his  cause.  If  his  vanity  is  larger  than  his 
conscience,  his  cause  will  become  a  martyr  to  him. 
Hus's  conscience  and  love  of  truth  were  immensely 
larger  than  his  vanity,  if  indeed  there  was  any  vanity 
in  the  man,  and  so  he  himself  became  the  martyr. 
His  very  position  was  now  heading  him  towards  the 
fire  that  was  to  consume  him.  The  necessity  of 
that  position,  as  spiritual  guide  and  instructor  of  the 
thousands  that  thronged  his  preaching,  drove  him  to 
an  earnest  and  independent  study  of  the  Scriptures. 
If  his  chapel  is  to  be  any  true  house  of  bread  he  must 
have  the  bread  to  break.  And  the  more  he  studies 
the  Sacred  Scriptures,  the  more  profoundly  does  he 
become  convinced  that  the  writings  of  Wiclif  are  in 
accordance  with  them.  He  finds  himself  in  growing 
sympathy  with  the  English  reformer.  Current  facts 
lend  confirmation  to  his  writings.  What  has  been 
written  in  England  concerning  the  endless  squabbles 
of  ecclesiastics  for  place  and  power,  concerning  the 
simony  and  greed  of  prelates  and  priests,  concerning 
the  false  confidence  which  Christian  people  are  repos- 
ing in  a  life  of  formalism  and  pretense,  holds  equally 
true  in  Bohemia.  He  translates  the  books  and  com- 
mends them  to  others.  Their  thought  and  spirit  get 
into  his  sermons.  Through  his  influence  Bohemia 
itself  is  rapidly  becoming  saturated  with  Wicliffian 
thought.1 

But  a  state  of  things  exists  in  the  university  which 

1  A  recent  writer  has  brought  to  light  the  fact  that  Hus,  in 
his  own  writings  upon  contemporary  evils,  largely  appropriated 
Wiclif  s  work,  —  adopting  whole  chapters,  indeed,  with  no  greater 
changes  than  the  substitution  of  Boemia  for  Wiclif 's  Anglia,  and 
of  Rex  Boemorum  for  Rex  Anglorum.  —  Dr.  Johann  Loserth, 
Wiclif  and  Hus,  book  ii.,  ch.  10. 


58  JOHN  HUS. 

is  about  to  cause  trouble.  Four  nations  are  repre- 
sented among  the  students,  —  Bavaria,  Saxony,  Po- 
land, and  Bohemia.  Each  is  represented  in  its  coun- 
cil and  has  a  voice  in  its  government.  Each  foreign 
nation  is  equal  in  every  respect  to  the  home  national- 
ity ;  so  that  when  the  question  comes  up  before  the 
council  of  tolerating  or  condemning  the  writings  of 
Wiclif,  they  are  swiftly  condemned  by  a  vote  of  three 
to  one.  Some  fellow-officer  soon  after  sees  Hus  with 
one  of  Wiclif's  tracts  in  his  hand,  and  remonstrates 
with  him.  "  Do  you  not  know  that  the  council  has 
sent  Wiclif  and  his  writings  to  perdition ?  "  "I  only 
wish,"  is  the  brave  reply,  "  that  my  soul,  when  liber- 
ated from  my  body,  may  be  in  the  place  where  Wic- 
lif is."  i 

But  the  Bohemian  spirit  is  aroused.  Both  students 
and  professors  feel  the  tyranny  of  this  foreign  major- 
ity. They  appeal  to  the  king ;  the  basis  of  represen- 
tation is  changed.  The  government  of  the  university 
is  made  what  it  professes  to  be  —  national.  Hus  is 
again  put  at  the  head  of  it,  and  twenty-five  hundred 
German  students  withdraw  at  once  from  Prague  and 
from  Bohemia,  and  found  the  still  famous  University 
of  Leipsic.  But  it  was  a  victory  for  Hus,  which  still 
held  his  face  towards  the  fatal  fire  ;  that  German 
wrath  will  make  itself  felt  by  and  by  in  the  Council 
of  Constance,  which  will  doom  him  to  the  stake.  It 
will  join  with  the  ecclesiastics  all  over  the  continent, 
who  already  fear  and  hate  the  brave,  strong  preacher 
of  the  Bethlehem  Chapel,  who  persists  in  showing  up 

1  An  answer  which  reminds  us  of  Father  Taylor's  witty  re- 
sponse, made  in  the  same  spirit,  to  one  who  suggested  that  prob- 
ably Dr.  Channing  was  in  perdition,  —  "  Well,  I  had  n't  thought 
of  it,  but  —  won't  he  change  the  character  of  the  place  ?  " 


MENDICANTS  AGAIN.  59 

the  rottenness  of  their  system  and  the  baseness  of 
their  conduct. 

At  this  time  we  must  remember  that  that  long-stand- 
ing disgrace  of  which  I  spoke  in  the  last  lecture,  the 
papal  schism,  still  exists.  There  are  two  popes,  one 
at  Rome  and  one  at  Avignon ;  some  adhere  to  one, 
some  to  the  other.  Hus,  like  Wiclif  before  him,  re- 
jects both,  claiming  that  Jesus  Christ  alone  is  head  of 
the  church.  A  majority  at  the  great  universities  at 
Oxford  and  Paris  and  Prague  believe  that  the  two 
popes  should  resign  ;  or,  if  they  will  not  resign,  should 
be  deposed  and  a  new  pope  elected.  And  so  a  coun- 
cil is  called  to  meet  in  Pisa  in  1409,  with  this  object 
in  view.  The  Popes  are  summoned,  but  refuse  to  rec- 
ognize the  authority  of  the  council.  A  vote  of  depo- 
sition is  passed,  and  the  council  elects  another  pope, 
and  the  only  result  is  that  matters  are  more  compli- 
cated than  ever,  and,  instead  of  two  popes,  there  are 
three.  Alexander  V.,  the  new  Pope,  asserts  his  rights, 
however,  and  among  his  earliest  official  acts  he  issues 
a  bull  in  favor  of  the  mendicants.  This  arouses 
afresh  the  preacher  of  Bethlehem  Chapel.  He  re- 
forges  Wiclif's  old  bolts,  and  hurls  them  right  and 
left  with  tremendous  effect.  He  makes  it  hot  for 
these  vagrants,  going  up  and  down  Bohemia,  intrud- 
ing themselves  into  the  work  of  better  men ;  selling 
their  dried  bones  and  lying  indulgences  ;  hearing  con- 
fessions and  peddling  out  worthless  pardons  ;  pro- 
claiming their  vows  of  poverty,  and  laying  their  greedy 
hands  on  the  earnings  of  the  poor,  and  extorting  by 
their  terrific  bugbears  the  dying  bequests  of  the  rich. 

And  the  ecclesiastics  far  and  near  begin  to  cry 
heresy.  An  old  Bohemian  chronicler  observes  that 
"while  Hus  rebuked  the  vices  of  the  laity,  he  was 


60  JOHN  HUS. 

only  praised.  Men  said  the  Spirit  of  God  spoke 
through  him.  But  just  as  soon  as  he  attacked  the 
Pope  and  the  higher  and  lower  clergy,  rebuking 
their  pride,  avarice,  simony,  and  other  vices,  and  claim- 
ing that  they  should  not  accumulate  property,  the 
whole  priesthood  rose  up  against  him,  saying,  '  He  is 
an  incarnate  devil  —  a  heretic.'  "  1  The  archbishop 
himself  grew  jealous,  and  summoned  all  holders  of  he- 
retical books,  especially  the  writings  of  Wiclif,  Hus, 
and  Jerome,  to  bring  them  to  him,  and  a  multitude 
are  brought,  —  two  hundred  or  more  of  Wiclif 's,  — 
"  carefully  written  and  splendidly  bound,"  and  com- 
mitted to  the  flames.  But  the  university  resists  the 
summons,  claiming  that  it  owes  no  allegiance  to  the 
archbishop,  but  holds  directly  from  the  Pope.  It  ap- 
peals, but  the  appeal  is  of  no  avail.  The  archbishop's 
authority  is  indorsed  by  a  bull  from  the  Pope,  which 
not  only  decrees  all  Wicliffian  literature  to  the  flames, 
but  furthermore  forbids  Hus  to  preach  any  more  from 
Bethlehem  pulpit.  From  this  latter  prohibition  Hus 
again  appeals  from  the  Pope  ill-informed  to  the  Pope 
well-informed,  and  calmly  sets  forth  the  reasonable 
grounds  of  his  appeal.  But  the  archbishop  waits  for 
no  further  issue,  but  proceeds  to  book-burning,  and, 
still  further,  solemnly  excommunicates  the  recusant 
students  and  their  leader,  Master  John  Hus.  And 
then  all  Bohemia  was  on  fire  with  indignation.  The 
king  cursed,  the  queen  wept,  the  nobility  protested 
with  more  vigor  than  elegance,  the  people  were  en- 
raged ;  even  the  rabble  composed  vulgar  ballads  and 
sung  profane  and  ribald  songs  under  the  archbishop's 
windows,  until  that  lordly  functionary  trembled  in  his 
bedchamber  more  from  fear  than  from  wrath.  And 
i  Gillett,  i.  143. 


THE   PIRATE-POPE.  61 

the  real  result  was  that  Wiclif 's  books  multiplied  more 
rapidly  than  they  were  burned  ;  and  Master  Hus,  with 
king  and  queen  and  nobles  and  town  and  gown  all  at 
his  back,  went  on  preaching  in  Bethlehem  Chapel  as 
Bethlehem  Chapel  even  had  not  heard  him  preach  be- 
fore. 

Of  course,  he  is  now  brought  by  his  conduct  more 
immediately  into  conflict  with  the  Pope. 

To  this  pope  we  must  pay  our  brief  respects.  It  is 
Pope  John  XXIII.1  Of  all  the  moral  monstrosities 
that  ever  found  their  way  into  the  papal  chair,  he  was 
one  of  the  most  immoral  and  the  most  monstrous.  In 
his  boyhood  vicious  and  unfilial,  in  his  youth  following 
the  profession  of  a  pirate  on  the  sea  and  of  a  bandit 
upon  the  land,  there  was  almost  no  form  of  wicked- 
ness with  which  he  was  unacquainted,  no  phase  of  cru- 
elty which  he  had  not  practiced.  He  deliberately  be- 
took himself  to  the  life  of  an  ecclesiastic  because  he 
thought  it  offered  him  a  safer,  surer,  and  speedier 
method  of  gratifying  his  lusts,  and  of  gaining  the 
wealth  and  power  coveted  by  his  avarice  and  ambi- 
tion. It  is  generally  considered  that  his  predecessor 
in  the  papal  chair  came  to  his  death  by  poison  admin- 
istered by  his  (John's)  hand,  and  that  he  then,  to  use 
a  modern  but  expressive  phrase,  bulldozed  the  con- 
clave into  conferring  the  tiara  upon  himself.  Such 
was  John  XXIII.,  who  made  the  name  of  John  so 
disgraceful  that  no  successor  in  the  papal  chair  has 
ventured  to  assume  it.  It  would  take  the  rarest  de- 
gree of  sainthood  to  lift  it  out  of  that  depth  of  infamy 
into  which  its  last  possessor  plunged  it. 

This  was  the  man  with  whom  Hus  now  had  to  do,  a 
man  not  to  be  trifled  with,  who  was  as  cruel  and  re- 

1  Alexander  V.  died  in  1410,  the  year  following  his  election. 


62  JOHN  HUS. 

morseless  a  pirate  in  the  Church  as  he  had  ever  been 
upon  the  sea.  In  the  summer  of  1412  he  put  Hus 
under  the  ban.  I  have  already  explained  the  force  of 
such  an  edict.  "  None  might  give  him  food  or  drink, 
light  or  fire.  None  might  buy  of  him  or  sell  to  him. 
None  might  converse  or  hold  intercourse  with  him. 
None  might  give  him  a  night's  lodging  or  even  a 
draught  of  water.  Every  city,  village,  or  castle  where 
he  might  reside  was  put  under  interdict.  The  sacra- 
ments could  not  be  administered  there.  All  religious 
worship  was  suspended  there.  If  he  died  excommu- 
nicate he  was  to  be  denied  burial,  or  if  he  was  excom- 
municated being  dead  and  buried,  his  body  was  to  be 
torn  from  its  grave  and  exposed  to  be  wasted  by  the 
elements  or  consumed  by  beasts  of  prey."  1 

And  the  Pope  meant  to  do  the  work  thoroughly. 
Not  content  with  launching  the  curse  with  all  its 
weight  against  Hus,  he  demanded  that  the  Bethlehem 
Chapel  should  be  leveled  to  the  ground,  lest  it  should 
remain  a  centre  of  pestilent  heresy. 

At  first  Hus  paid  no  regard  to  the  ban,  but  went 
on  with  his  preaching  and  teaching  as  before  ;  and  it 
speaks  a  world  of  honor  to  the  faith  and  loyal  courage 
of  the  Bohemians  that  not  only  his  chapel  still  stood, 
but  that  it  was  still  thronged,  like  a  house  of  bread  as 
it  was,  by  hungry  hearers.  Of  course,  there  were 
multitudes  who  avoided  him  as  they  would  have 
shunned  one  who  was  stricken  with  the  plague,  while 
all  who  followed  him  or  listened  to  him  were  banned 
with  him.  And  this  inevitably  led  to  a  distressing 
state  of  things  in  the  city.  Its  social  and  commercial 
interests  would  suffer  seriously.  Hus  would  have 
been  still  protected  by  the  king  and  by  the  nobles  and 
1  Dr.  Gillett,  i.  226. 


BANNED,   BUT   UNSILENCED.  63 

by  the  large  majority  of  the  university,  had  he  chosen 
to  remain ;  but  he  unselfishly  determined,  for  a  while 
at  least,  to  depart ;  and  so,  making  a  solemn  appeal  to 
God,  he  goes  forth,  like  the  scape-goat  of  old,  into  the 
wilderness. 

But  even  this  probably  increased  his  power  instead 
of  diminishing  it.  The  walls  of  his  chapel  now  were 
expanded  to  the  horizon,  and  its  dome  lifted  to  the  sky. 
He  preaches  in  field  and  wood.  He  talks,  unknown,  to 
peasants.  He  reads  everywhere  the  tracts  of  Wiclif. 
He  blows  that  spark  into  a  broader  flame.  Coming 
himself  continually  into  clearer  light,  he  spreads  every- 
where among  the  people  the  light  which  he  has  him- 
self. Freely  he  has  received,  he  freely  gives.  He  in- 
culcates the  plain  and  practical  duties  of  piety.  It  is 
the  life  of  men  which  he  is  trying  to  elevate,  not  to 
cast  down  the  Pope.  He  wants  them  to  trust  in  reali- 
ties and  not  in  shams.  "  Why  do  you  worship  that 
cross  of  wood  ?  "  he  cries.  "  Two  sticks  placed  cross- 
wise are  not  more  holy  than  when  laid  side  by  side. 
Why  do  you  confess  to  these  wandering  monks  ?  Who 
has  made  them  judges  over  you  ?  Lay  your  way  open 
before  the  Lord.  Confess  your  sins  to  the  true  judge. 
Declare  your  faults  not  only  with  the  tongue,  but  with 
the  conscience,  and  then  believe,  trust,  and  hope  to 
obtain  mercy."  And  the  people  everywhere  repeated 
these  sayings  of  his.  "  This  man,"  said  one  of  his 
enemies,  "is  sending  his  messengers  everywhere,  to 
nobles,  to  soldiers,  to  common  people,  to  women." 

Some  one  tells  him  in  his  wanderings,  that  since  he 
has  been  put  under  the  Pope's  ban  one  of  his  oldest 
and  dearest  friends,  a  theological  professor  in  the  uni- 
versity, has  deserted  him  and  gone  over  to  the  side  of 
the  Pope.  His  only  answer,  free  from  all  bitterness, 


64  JOHN  BUS. 

is  :  "  Truth  is  my  friend  and  Palecz  is  my  friend,  but 
both  being  my  friends,  Truth  I  must  honor  in  prefer- 
ence." What  suffers  most  in  the  man  is  the  pastor's 
heart.  Again  and  again  he  writes  to  the  flock  at  Beth- 
lehem Chapel  in  this  strain :  "  God  knows  how  I  long 
to  be  with  you  and  instructing  you.  For  twelve  years 
it  has  been  my  greatest  consolation  to  observe  your  Dil- 
igence in  hearing  God's  word  and  to  witness  the  true 
and  sincere  repentance  of  many.  But  pray  for  me, 
that  in  all  places  where  a  need  exists,  in  cities,  in  vil- 
lages, in  castles,  in  the  fields,  in  the  forests,  wherever 
I  can  be  of  any  use,  pray  for  me  that  the  word  of  God 
may  not  be  kept  back  in  me."  He  has  witnessed  a 
good  confession  in  Bethlehem  Chapel,  a  good  confes- 
sion in  that  still  broader  chapel  whose  walls  have  been 
the  mountains  round  about  Bohemia  and  whose  roof 
is  the  open  sky.  He  has  one  other  last  confession  to 
make  with  "  the  noble  army  of  martyrs." 

During  this  period  of  Hus's  voluntary  exile  from 
Bohemia,  in  the  year  1413,  the  Emperor  Sigismund 
and  Pope  John  XXIII.  agreed  upon  arrangements  for 
a  general  council,  to  be  held  in  the  city  of  Constance 
in  the  following  year.  The  object  of  the  council,  as 
originally  contemplated,  was  that  which  had  so  often 
challenged  the  interest  and  employed  the  diplomacy  of 
both  civil  and  ecclesiastical  rulers  in  vain,  the  resto- 
ration of  the  unity  of  the  Church  and  its  purification 
from  other  abuses.  But  Bohemian  affairs  had  of  late 
become  so  prominent  under  the  immense  personal  in- 
fluence of  Hus,  that  it  was  determined  to  give  them 
an  equally  prominent  place  in  the  deliberations  of  the 
council.  For  this  reason  it  was  important  that  Hus 
should  be  summoned  and  placed  on  trial.  The  Bohe- 
mian question  could  only  be  settled  by  dealing  with  its 


COUNCIL   OF  CONSTANCE.  65 

head  in  person.  Constance  of  itself  was  an  insignifi- 
cant town,  but  that  council  made  its  name  immortal. 
Not  only  the  great  importance  of  the  questions  to  be 
discussed,  but  the  character  and  constitution  of  the 
council  itself,  made  it  nearly  the  most  important,  and 
perhaps  altogether  the  most  impressive,  ecclesiastical 
assemblage  ever  gathered.  "  It  embraced  nearly  all 
the  men  of  the  age,  of  any  eminence  in  learning,  sta- 
tion, or  authority."  All  Christendom  contributed  to  the 
mighty  throng ; l  forty  thousand  strangers  were  quar- 
tered in  and  about  the  little  city;  the  buildings  of  the 
town  were  utterly  inadequate  to  the  concourse.  Booths 
and  sheds  were  erected  without  the  walls,  and  far 
away  into  the  adjacent  country.  Thousands  lived  in 
camp.  Entertainments  of  every  sort  were  multiplied 
for  soldiers  and  servants  and  caterers.  A  historian  of 
the  time,  commenting  upon  its  magnitude,  tells  us  that 
thirty  thousand  horses  might  have  been  counted  at  one 
time  within  the  city's  circuit.  There  were  thirty  cardi- 
nals, twenty  archbishops,  one  hundred  and  fifty  bishops, 
a  multitude  of  abbots  and  doctors,  and  four  thousand 
priests.  Among  the  sovereigns  were  the  Elector  Pala- 
tine, the  Electors  of  Mentz  and  Saxony,  the  Dukes  of 
Austria,  of  Bavaria,  and  of  Silesia,  with  their  respec- 
tive retinues.  There  were  margraves  and  counts  and 
barons  and  noblemen  and  knights  almost  without  num- 
ber. Besides  all  these  there  was  a  miscellaneous  multi- 
tude of  all  trades  and  professions,  and  of  no  trade  or 
profession,  such  as  an  unparalleled  occasion  would  be 
likely  to  draw  together  for  business,  for  pleasure,  or 
for  mischief.  For  four  years  this  mighty  council  was 

1  L'Enfant,  Histoire  du  Concile  de  Constance,  torn,  i.,  80,  81, 
ed.  Amsterdam,  1727. 
5 


66  JOHN  HUS. 

in  session.  With  the  various  discussions  which  oc- 
cupied it  I  can  now  have  nothing  to  do,  save  those 
which  immediately  bear  upon  the  destinies  of  Hus. 
To  this  council,  then,  Hus  received  from  the  Emperor 
Sigismund  a  safe  conduct,  charging  all  people  to  aid 
him  in  his  journey,  to  refrain  from  molesting  him,  to 
regard  the  safety  of  his  person,  to  infringe  in  nowise 
upon  his  liberty.  But  he  was  apprehensive  from  the 
first  that  the  end  of  his  career  was  at  hand.  He  was 
no  longer  to  be  girded  round  by  the  fortress  -  like 
walls  of  his  beloved  Bohemia,  and  by  the  safer  secur- 
ity of  the  loving  hearts  of  those  whom  he  was  wont  to 
call  "  his  dear  Bohemians."  Could  he  take  them  with 
him  they  would  offer  him  but  feeble  protection  in  such 
a  Vanity  Fair.  He  does  the  last  things  as  one  who 
is  going  upon  a  returnless  journey.  And  then  upon 
the  14th  of  October  he  sets  out,  with  two  or  three 
faithful  friends,  for  what  is  to  be  more  like  Pande- 
monium broke  loose,  than  a  council  of  the  Church 
of  God  on  earth.  But  the  pledge  of  the  Emperor 
will  of  course  be  sacred;  and  he  is  joyful  in  the 
thought  that  he  will  have  the  opportunity  to  defend 
his  doctrines,  and  to  vindicate  his  conduct  before  the 
assembled  representatives  of  Christendom.  But  never 
was  pledge  more  villainously  broken,  or  a  hope  more 
cruelly  disappointed.  For  eighteen  days  he  is  on  his 
way,  and  everywhere  meets  with  cheer  and  encourage- 
ment. The  country  people  venerate  his  name  and  are 
glad  to  get  a  sight  of  his  face.  He  arrives  at  length 
on  the  3d  of  November,  and  for  three  weeks  keeps  in 
close  seclusion.  He  is  a  man  of  peace  and  never  yet 
stirred  up  strife  for  strife's  sake.  The  Pope  has  for  the 
time  suspended  his  sentence  of  excommunication  and 
given  him  the  most  solemn  pledges  of  personal  safety. 


SIGISMUND'S  PERJURY.  67 

And  yet,  before  the  month  goes  by,  and  before  his 
case  has  been  even  called  for  a  hearing,  the  words  of 
both  emperor  and  pope  are  causelessly  violated,  and 
he  is  seized,  for  no  assigned  or  assignable  reason,  and 
thrown  into  the  dungeon  of  the  Dominican  monastery. 
I  said  for  no  assignable  reason ;  a  reason  was  given, 
the  reason  which  Rome  in  all  ages  has  been  accus- 
tomed to  give,  that  it  would  be  wrong  to  keep  faith 
with  a  heretic.  A  pitiful  begging  of  the  whole  ques- 
tion, for  that  was  the  very  point  at  issue  which  the 
council  was  to  decide  :  whether  he  was  a  heretic  or  not. 
I  will  not  linger  to  describe  this  wretched  travesty 
and  mockery  of  trial,  nor  the  horrors  of  imprisonment 
with  insufficient  food,  until  he  was  wasted  almost  to 
a  shadow;  the  unmitigated  darkness  and  loathsome- 
ness of  his  dungeon,  in  which  he  could  not  stand 
erect  or  recline  at  length ;  its  companionship  of  chat- 
tering rats;  its  clammy  floor  and  walls;  the  fetters 
which  he  wore  by  day  and  the  stocks  of  iron  in  which 
he  was  compelled  to  pass  the  nights.  From  the  6th  of 
December  until  the  6th  of  the  following  July  he  was 
an  uncondemned  captive.  And  not  only  uncondemned, 
but  practically  unheard.  Four  hearings,  so-called,  he 
did  have,  but  they  were  hearings  of  the  council,  and 
not  hearings  of  Hus.  There  were  dreary  iterations 
and  reiterations  of  charges,  with  not  the  slightest  at- 
tempt at  substantiation  and  with  no  permission  of 
response.  "  Eecant !  Recant !  "  was  the  demand,  but 
there  was  nothing  to  recant.  How  can  one  recant  what 
he  has  never  held  ?  Hus's  differences  with  the  Church 
had  not  been  as  to  the  substance  of  her  teachings,  but 
as  to  the  character  of  her  life.  And  that  that  was 
altogether  out  of  the  way  this  great  council  was  itself 
an  evidence  and  a  confession,  called,  as  it  had  been 


68  JOHN  HUS. 

primarily,  to  purge  the  Church  of  inveterate  scandals. 
"  Convict  me  of  heresy  by  the  teachings  of  Christ  and 
his  apostles  (avowedly  you  have  no  truly  constituted 
pope),  and  I  will  cheerfully  recant.  But  as  yet  there 
is  nothing  to  recant.  I  cannojj  abjure  errors  that  have 
been  imputed  to  me  by  false  witnesses."  And  so  it 
was  once,  twice,  thrice.  The  fourth  and  last  time  he 
is  dragged  up  out  of  his  dungeon.  The  cat's  silly 
play  with  the  mouse  is  over  now;  he  is  pronounced 
once  for  all  an  incorrigible  heretic.  They  go  through 
with  the  meaningless  farce  of  putting  on  him  a  priestly 
robe  and  stripping  it  off  again,  of  thrusting  into  his 
hand  a  sacramental  chalice  and  snatching  it  away,  as 
though  a  priest  unto  God  could  be  thus  made  and 
unmade.  How  to  deal  with  his  tonsure  puzzles  them. 
His  head  is  shaven,  how  to  unshave  it  and  then  shave 
it  again  is  the  question,  as  important  to  be  sure  as 
any  they  have  to  settle.  Also,  whether  the  work  shall 
be  done  with  razor  or  with  scissors.  Fair  parallel  of 
some  questions  agitated  just  now.  At  length  they  set- 
tle it  by  clipping  his  ring  of  hair,  north,  south,  east, 
and  west,  in  cross-shape  with  scissors.1  They  call  it 

1  Mais  lorsqu'il  fallut  lui  6ter  les  marques  de  la  tonsure,  il 
s'eleva  une  graude  contestation  entre  les  Prelats,  pour  savoir,  s'il 
falloit  y  employer  le  rasoir  ou  seulement  les  ciseaux.  Surquoi 
Jean  Hus  se  tournant  vers  PEmpereur,  "  Voyez,"  dit-il,  "ils  ne 
sauroient  meme  s'accorder  entre  eux  sur  la  maniere  de  m'insul- 
ter."  Reichentkal  dit  qu'on  le  lava,  afin  de  lui  oter  les  marques 
de  sa  tonsure,  mais  qu'il  se  moquoit  de  toutes  ces  ceremonies. 
Enfin  les  ciseaux  1'ayant  emporte  sur  le  rasoir,  on  lui  coupa  les 
cheveux  en  croix  afin  qu'il  ne  parut  aucune  marque  de  couronne. 
Nous  apprenons  du  Droit  Canon  que  cette  degradation  met  le 
Pretre  au  rang  des  La'iques  et  que  quoiqu'elle  ne  lui  ote  pas  le 
caractere  qui  est  indelibile,  elle  le  rende  pour  jamais  incapable 
d'exercer  les  functions  de  la  Pretrise.  —  L'Enfant,  Histoire  du 
Concile  de  Constance,  torn,  i.,  408,  ed.  Amsterdam,  1727. 


THE  BURNING.  69 

his  degradation  from  the  priesthood.  It  is  the  degra- 
dation of  priesthood,  to  be  sure,  but  not  of  his.  And 
then  they  cry,  He  belongs  to  the  Church  no  longer,  let 
him  be  burnt.  And  Sigismund,  forsworn,  perjured, 
consciously,  blushingly  guilty,  lets  them  have  their 
way,  and,  like  Pilate,  washes  the  hands  which  a  sea 
could  never  cleanse. 

The  sentence  is  not  delayed.  The  council  has 
other  work  to  do,  and  goes  on  with  its  pottering 
business,  while  the  very  grandest  soul  that  the  world 
knew  that  day  goes  out  to  ascend  in  his  chariot  of 
fire.  Like  the  song  of  the  lark,  which  floats  down 
the  air  when  the  sweet  singer  itself  is  no  longer 
visible,  so  out  of  the  cloud  of  smoke  and  flame  are 
heard  the  last  words  of  the  martyr's  mortal  language, 
"  Glory  be  to  God  on  high,  and  on  earth  peace  and 
good  will  towards  men.  We  praise  Thee !  We  bless 
Thee  !  We  worship  Thee  !  We  glorify  Thee !  We 
give  thanks  to  Thee  for  thy  great  glory !  " 

The  mighty  host  of  pilgrims  stand  silent  as  though 
smitten  by  some  vision  of  heavenly  apocalypse,  and 
when  the  smoke  clears  away  there  are  some  ashes  and 
a  handful  of  iron  links  hanging  to  a  blackened  stake. 
But  John  Hus  is  with  God, 


IV. 

SAVONAROLA. 
A.  D.  1452-1498. 

As  the  moon 

Doth  by  the  rolling  of  her  heavenly  sphere, 
Hide  and  reveal  the  strand  unceasingly; 
So  fortune  deals  with  Florence. 

DANTE,  Paradise,  xv. 


IV. 

SAVONAROLA. 
A.  D.  1452-1498. 

THE  drama  of  history  presents  us  with  no  scenes 
more  fascinating  in  their  splendor,  or  more  impressive 
in  their  tragedy,  than  those  which  the  fifteenth  century 
saw  enacted  in  Italy.  Private  magnificence  reached 
its  zenith,  and  common  wretchedness  sunk  to  its  na- 
dir. Art  achieved  its  most  brilliant  triumphs,  and  re- 
ligion fell  into  its  dreariest  formalisms.  Government, 
nominally  republican,  was  the  plaything  of  strong- 
handed  and  unprincipled  adventurers,  who  were  rich, 
or  mighty,  or  cunning  enough  to  control  the  nerveless 
popular  will.  Learning  among  the  clergy  meant  dab- 
bling in  scholasticism  ;  among  the  higher  or  wealthier 
laity,  some  slight  acquaintance  with  pagan  writers, 
and  a  love  for  classic  antiquities ;  among  the  common 
people  there  was  little  or  none.  It  is  almost  enough, 
in  order  to  describe  the  moral  and  social  life  of  the 
century,  to  say  that  it  was  the  age  of  the  Medici  at 
Florence,  and  of  the  Borgias  at  Rome ;  an  age  of  cul- 
ture wedded  to  corruption ;  an  age  whose  external  garb 
was  elegance,  whose  inmost  heart  was  moral  rotten- 
ness ;  an  age  whose  only  grand  enthusiasms  were  for 
art  and  vice ;  all  other  enthusiasms  were  accounted 
vulgar  and  had  died  out.  Patriotism  and  religion,  at 
least,  if  not  dead,  were  comatose.  The  one  needed  a 
Judas  Maccabaeus,  the  other  a  John  the  Baptist. 


74  SAVONAROLA. 

The   reformatory  movement  which  we  contemplate 
in  the  life  of  Savonarola,  which  is  nearly  coincident 
with  the  latter  half  of  the  fifteenth  century,  stands  by 
itself.     It  has  no  obvious  connection,  either  local  or 
dynamic,    with   any   movement   which  we   have   con- 
sidered, or  any  which  we  shall  consider.     There  was 
no  agitation  leading  up  to  it  as  the  work  of  Wiclif 
led  up  to  that  of  Hus ;   it  was  followed  by  none  as 
nearly  consequent  upon  it  as  the  work  of  Hus  was 
followed   by  that  of  Luther.      It  was  not,  like  the 
work  of  these,  the  inauguration  of  a  mighty  spiritual 
movement,  to  be  taken  up  by  strong  successors  when 
the   author  laid   it   down,  to   sweep  on  in  gathering 
power  and  greater  triumphs,  but  it  begins  and  ends 
before  our  eyes.     It  could  not  be  represented  by  any 
such  symbolic  picture  as  that  one  of  Wiclif  kindling  a 
spark,  which  Hus  blows  into  a  flame,  at  which  Luther, 
in  turn,  lights  his  torch ;  but  in  this  case  the  spark  is 
lighted,  the  flame  kindled,  and  the  torch  waved  by  a 
single  hand,  and  when  that  hand  drops  the  torch  there 
is  none  to  take  it  up,  and  the  light  goes  out.     It  is 
like  a  song,  which  may  tarry  for  a  little  in  the  mem- 
ory, but  whose  notes  do  not  linger  in  the  air  when  the 
voice  that  raised  it  has  become  silent.    And  so  Savona- 
rola stands  alone,  like  Melchisedek,  without  any  rec- 
ognizable predecessor  or  successor,  his  reformation  as 
unique  and  circumscribed  by  definite  historic  lines  as 
the  literary  or  artistic  glory  of  that  Florence  which 
saw  its  beginning,  and   middle,  and  end.     It  is  re- 
markable that  a  work  which,  while  it  was  going  on, 
gathered  so  great  interest  about  itself,  should  have 
taken  so  little  from  the  past  and  bequeathed  so  little 
to  the  future.     So  far  as  we  can  see,  Savonarola  left 
little  heritage  to  the  subsequent  ages  besides  the  story 


SAVONAROLA'S  BIRTH.  75 

of  his  career  and  the  memory  of  his  example.  He 
stands  thus  in  strange  contrast  with  the  other  famous 
men  of  his  age.  The  Laurentian  Library,  founded 
by  Cosmo  de  Medici,  and  enriched  by  Lorenzo  the 
Magnificent,  still  abides,  a  part  of  the  permanent 
pride  of  Florence.  The  lovely  conceits  and  dream- 
like images  to  which  the  brush  of  Fra  Angelico  gave 
birth  still  adorn  the  convent  of  San  Marco,  where 
Savonarola  prayed,  and  taught,  and  governed  not 
only  his  monks,  but  Florence  itself.  Michael  Angelo, 
who  chiseled  marble  furiously  during  the  very  years 
when  the  fiery  friar  was  subduing  harder  hearts,  be- 
queathed to  the  world  work  that,  after  four  centuries, 
is  as  fresh  and  forceful  as  when  it  left  his  hand. 
But  of  Savonarola  only  a  memory  lingers.  He 
seemed  to  crash  into  the  world's  history  suddenly, 
and  from  some  far  off  space,  and  to  leave  it  as  sud- 
denly and  mysteriously,  like  a  comet  in  a  hyperbolic 
orbit,  which  once  invades  the  circles  of  the  solar 
system ;  never  seen  before,  to  be  never  seen  again. 
He  was  like  the  prophet  Jonah  at  Nineveh :  a  stern 
and  fiery  preacher  of  righteousness,  accomplishing  an 
immediate  work,  and  then  both  the  preacher  and  his 
work  passing  out  of  history. 

Girolamo  Savonarola,  though  identified  with  Flor- 
ence, was  not  a  Florentine.  He  was  born  at  Ferrara, 
of  an  honorable  family,  September  21,  1452.  His 
grandfather  was  a  learned  physician  of  considerable 
renown,  who  had  been  called  to  the  court  of  that  state 
by  its  sovereign,  who  was  a  patron  of  learning,  and 
delighted  to  surround  himself  by  men  of  art  and  let- 
ters. It  was  intended  by  his  family  that  Girolamo 
should  follow  the  profession  of  his  grandfather,  and 
maintain  the  traditions  and  the  local  relations  of  his 


76 


SAVON  A  ft  OLA. 


house,  and  the  work  of   his  education   proceeded  in 
accordance  with  this  intent.    But,  as  it  has  turned  out 
in  so  many  instances,  the  lines  of  manhood's  character 
were  already  so  strongly  cut  in  the  disposition  of  the 
boy  that   it  could   not  be  moulded  and  compressed 
within  the  lines  of  parental  purpose.     Eaglets  cannot 
be  converted  into  rooks,  take  them  as  near  the  sheU  as 
you  please.     The  prominent  feature  of  his  childhood 
seems  to  have  been  a  keen  moral  sensibility,  which 
was  impressed  even  to  anguish  by  the  sights  and  sounds 
of  events  that  were  continually  occurring  about  him. 
Ferrara,  now  a  solemn  and  decayed  old  town,  with 
grass  growing  in  its  streets,  and  with  less  than  a  third 
of  its  former  population,  was  at  that  time  one  of  the 
busiest  and  one  of  the  gayest  capitals  of  Europe,  shel- 
tering a   hundred  thousand  people  within  its  waUs. 
Like  aU  the  Italian  cities  of  the  Middle  Ages,  its  glory 
was  inseparably  wedded  with  disgrace.     Splendor  and 
cruelty  walked  hand  in  hand.     In  the  ducal  palace 
perpetual  feastings  were  going  on  in  gorgeous  saloons, 
where  the  clinking  of  glass  and  crystal  overhead  was 
matched  by  the  clanking  of  fetters  in  the  dungeons 
underneath.    The  masters  of  social  order  passed  easily 
and  without  any  apparent  gradations  of  feeling,  from 
splendors  to  horrors,  from  horrors  to  splendors.    From 
the  association  of  his  family  with  the  court,  the  boy 
was   brought   into   early   contact  with   and   familial- 
knowledge  of  its  magnificence,  and  the  violent  con- 
trast  which  it  presented  to  the  sorrows  and  wretch- 
edness of  the  people.     He  felt  himself   in  a  world 
where  all  things  were  mismatched.     He  was  living  in 
times  that  were  out  of  joint.     He  wandered  by  him- 
self.    His  great  relief  was  to  get  out  of  the  city  whose 
social  disorders  he  was  powerless  to  affect,  and  'to  pore 


THE  PUZZLE   OF  LIFE.  77 

over  his  Bible  and  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  in  the  peace- 
ful meadows  of  the  Po.  Sometimes  his  sorrows  would 
drive  him  to  one  or  other  of  the  churches,  where  for 
hours  he  would  lie  prostrate  upon  the  pavement  in 
some  obscure  corner,  and  wet  the  marble  with  his  tears. 
So  early  in  life  did  he  pass  through  that  experience, 
the  puzzle  of  every  thoughtful  life,  which  the  Hebrew 
Psalmist  was  the  first  to  voice,  and  over  whose  solu- 
tion the  social  science  of  the  world  is  still  perplexed : 
"  I  saw  the  prosperity  of  the  wicked.  They  are  not  in 
trouble  as  other  men,  neither  are  they  plagued  like 
other  men.  Therefore  pride  compasseth  them  about 
as  a  chain;  violence  covereth  them  as  a  garment. 
Their  eyes  stand  out  with  fatness  :  they  have  more 
than  heart  could  wish.  They  are  corrupt  and  speak 
wickedly  concerning  oppression :  they  speak  loftily. 
Therefore  his  people  return  hither,  and  waters  of  a 
full  cup  are  wrung  out  to  them.  And  they  say  *  How 
doth  God  know  ? '  and  '  Is  there  knowledge  with  the 
Most  High?*  Behold,  these  are  the  ungodly,  who 
prosper  in  the  world :  they  increase  in  riches.  When 
I  thought  to  know  this  it  was  too  painful  for  me,  until 
I  went  into  the  sanctuary  of  God."  Singularly  like 
this  language  of  the  old  Hebrew  Psalmist  are  some 
words  of  a  youthful  poem  composed  at  this  very  time 
by  Savonarola  :  "  I  see  the  whole  world  in  confusion ; 
every  virtue  and  every  noble  habit  gone.  There  is  no 
shining  light.  None  are  ashamed  of  their  vices.  He 
is  happy  who  lives  by  rapine  and  feeds  on  the  blood 
of  another,  who  robs  widows  and  his  own  infant  chil- 
dren, and  who  drives  the  poor  to  ruin.  That  soul  is 
deemed  refined  and  rare  who  gains  the  most  by  fraud 
and  force,  who  scorns  heaven  and  Christ,  and  whose 
constant  thoughts  are  bent  on  others'  destruction."  1 
i  Villari,  i.,  15. 


78 


SAVONAROLA. 


Just  now  there  came  into  his  life  an  episode  which, 
had  he  been  permitted  to  have  his  own  will,  would 
have  changed  his  whole  career,  and  we  should  have 
assembled  here  this  evening  to  listen  to  an  entirely 
different  story,  whose  subject  would  probably  have 
been  — not  Savonarola.  There  came  into  his  mind 
a  vision,  transitory,  but  very  bright,  of  a  possible 
life  of  real  happiness  even  in  this  world,  and  he  turned 
aside  for  a  little  to  pursue  it.  A  family  of  refugees 
from  Florence  came  to  live  in  Ferrara  in  the  house 
next  his  father's.  There  was  one  beautiful  daughter. 
The  Borrows  of  the  banished  exiles  touched  Girolamo's 
sensitive  nature,  and  pity  led  to  love.  He  dared  to 
ask  for  the  young  Florentine's  hand,  but  she  frostily 
informed  him  that  a  Strozzi  could  never  wed  with  a 
Savonarola.  His  pride  of  birth  was  at  least  equal  to 
hers,  and  a  refusal  for  such  a  reason  was  sufficient  to 
turn  his  love  to  scorn. 

Though  this  event  doubtless  had  its  influence  by 
way  of  adding  weight  to  his  determination,  yet  it  was 
not  the  principal  reason  for  the  course  of  life  upon 
which  he  now  entered.  His  often-repeated  prayer  for 
many  years  had  been,  "  O  Lord  !  make  known  to  me 
the  way  in  which  I  am  to  guide  my  soul !  "  Deeper 
and  deeper  the  conviction  had  grown  that  the  religious 
life  was  the  only  refuge  to  which  he  could  betake^him- 
self.  Conscience  pointed  to  the  monastery.  In  no 
other  way  was  it  possible  in  the  Italy  of  that  day,  to 
openly  profess  a  devotion  to  the  service  of  God  and  the 
welfare  of  human  souls ;  and  desire  powerfully  sec- 
onded conscience.  His  tender  sensibilities  cannot  en- 
dure a  parting  from  his  mother,  and  he  takes  advan- 
tage of  a  holiday  when  the  family  are  all  from  home, 
and  goes  away  to  Bologna,  and  seeks  for  admission  to 


BECOMES  A   MONK.  79 

the  Dominican  monastery  there.  He  asks  only  that  he 
may  be  employed  in  some  menial  service,  in  mending 
the  garments  of  the  brethren,  or  digging  in  the  convent 
garden.  But  the  superior,  after  a  little,  penetrates 
this  veil  of  genuine  modesty,  finds  out  that  the  novice 
knows  the  Bible  and  St.  Thomas,  and  that  he  is  versed 
in  natural  science  and  letters,  and  sets  him  at  work  as 
a  teacher  of  the  other  novices ;  makes  him  a  lecturer, 
and  finally  sends  him  out  as  a  preaching  friar.  His 
preaching  does  not  make  much  impression ;  his  voice 
is  harsh,  his  ways  are  awkward.  For  seven  years, 
from  1475  to  1482,  when  he  is  thirty  years  old,  he  con- 
tinues in  the  convent  at  Bologna,  giving  himself  to  the 
study  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  until,  as  the  story  goes, 
he  knew  the  Bible  every  word  by  heart.  He  dwells 
upon  the  prophets  chiefly,  compares  the  dark  times  of 
Hebrew  history  with  these  Italian  days.  He  finds  him- 
self in  sympathy  with  the  fierce  denunciations  made  in 
old  time  against  unrighteousness,  the  avarice  of  priests, 
and  the  cruelty  of  rulers.  He  sees  the  old  prophetic  vis- 
ions repeated.  They  visit  his  own  dreams  and  fill  his 
waking  thoughts  until  he  feels  himself  possessed  of 
the  prophetic  spirit.  He  feels  that  the  clouds  of  Je- 
hovah's wrath  impend  over  Italy,  as  they  once  hung 
over  Syria.  He  is  in  manifest  training  to  be  a  preacher 
of  "the  wrath  to  come."  One  important  thing  these 
seven  years  in  the  Bologna  convent  taught  him,  which 
was  necessary  to  complement  the  knowledge  he  had 
previously  gained.  Before  going  into  this  retreat  he 
had  become  deeply  convinced  of  the  ruin  of  the  world. 
He  now  became  equally  impressed  that  there  was  a 
similar  state  of  things  in  the  Church.  He  had  only 
fled  from  one  evil  to  fall  into  another.  There  was  al- 
most as  little  of  sainthood  in  the  sphere  he  had  entered, 


80  SA  VONAROLA. 

as  there  was  of  truth  and  honesty  in  that  which  he 
had  left. 

In  1482  he  is  sent  by  his  superior  to  preach  in  Fer- 
rara,  his  native  city ;  but  his  stay  is  short  and  his  suc- 
cess indifferent.  Whether  it  is  for  the  old  proverbial 
reason,  that  a  prophet  is  without  honor  in  his  own 
country,  as  he  himself  suspected,  or,  as  others  have 
suggested,  because  he  could  not  descend  to  the  vulgar 
sensationalisms,  and  low  buffooneries,  and  questionable 
jokes,  which  then  formed  the  stock  in  trade  of  the 
average  preaching  friar,  from  one  cause  or  another  he 
gets  no  hold  upon  the  popular  interest.  And  a  war 
being  imminent  just  then  in  Northeastern  Italy,  the 
convent  is  disbanded.  The  monks  are  sent  here  and 
there,  and  Savonarola  is  assigned,  we  may  well  believe 
by  a  divine  predestination,  to  the  convent  of  San 
Marco  in  Florence,  with  which  all  his  work  henceforth, 
to  the  end  of  life,  is  to  be  associated.  It  is  here  and 
now  that  his  life  for  the  first  time  becomes  historic. 

As  he  enters  these  cool  and  quiet  precincts,  he 
may  well  be  excused  for  thinking  that  he  has  at 
last  found  the  blessed  retreat  which  his  vexed  and 
weary  spirit  has  craved  so  long.  It  seems  like  a  bit 
of  heaven  let  down  to  earth.  Sanctity,  repose,  and 
beauty  are  all  the  immediate  suggestions  of  the  place. 
For  a  thoughtful,  studious,  devout,  patriotic,  beauty- 
loving  man  such  as  Savonarola  was,  the  convent  of 
San  Marco  must  have  seemed  a  very  paradise.  Built 
some  forty  years  before  by  the  munificence  of  Cosmo 
de  Medici,  it  had  been  enriched  by  him  and  by  his 
grandson  Lorenzo  with  priceless  treasures  of  literature 
and  of  art.  Here  had  been  deposited  what  was  at 
the  time  the  rarest  collection  of  books  and  manu- 
scripts to  be  found  in  Italy.  The  walls  of  chapel  and 


LORENZO   THE  MAGNIFICENT.  81 

cloister  had  been  adorned  by  that  angelic  artist  who 
prayed  while  he  painted  on  his  knees,  whose  every 
lightest  touch  was  a  devout  aspiration.  Here  St.  An- 
tonino  had  shed  abroad  his  lovely  charities  till  they 
filled  the  streets  and  houses  of  Florence  like  a  sweet 
and  enduring  perfume,  so  that  even  to  this  day  his 
name  is  uttered  by  Florentines  in  the  hushed  voice  of 
reverent  love.  Here  scholars  and  artists  came  from 
all  parts  of  Italy  to  consult  its  books  and  to  study 
its  pictures.  Such  was  the  place  to  which  the  young 
friar  had  come  for  the  beginning  of  his  career.  He 
little  thought  it  was  the  splendidly  illuminated  initial 
of  a  tragedy  that  would  end  in  fire  and  blood.  Flor- 
ence did  not  know  that  day  what  manner  of  man  she 
had  admitted  to  her  hospitality  in  the  person  of  the 
obscure  preaching  friar.  As  little  did  he  know  the 
Florence  that  lay  around  his  peaceful  retreat.  They 
were  soon  to  become  acquainted. 

Very  naturally  the  friar  became  acquainted  with 
Florence  before  the  city  became  acquainted  with  him. 
For  the  first  five  or  six  years  of  his  residence  he  is 
unconsciously  preparing  for  his  work.  Let  us  look 
briefly  at  the  facts  as  they  met  him. 

Lorenzo  de  Medici  is  now  at  the  height  of  his  fame, 
and  has  everything  his  own  way  in  Florence.  It  is 
hardly  necessary  to  repeat  the  story  of  his  rise.  Flor- 
ence was  nominally  a  republic,  but  really  a  little  des- 
potism. The  Medici  family  having  long  before  risen 
to  great  wealth  in  mercantile  operations,  had  gained 
controlling  power  in  civil  affairs,  and  had  held  it  now 
for  three  generations.  The  people,  naturally  indolent, 
fond  of  splendor,  proud  of  their  city's  easy  preemi- 
nence in  beauty,  in  architecture,  in  art,  were  content 
to  have  the  power  lodged  where  it  was,  so  long  as  it 


SAVONAROLA. 


was  strongly  held,  and  they  were  kept  in  good  humor 
by  festivals,  and  holidays,  and  entertainments.  And 
apart  from  the  fact  that  the  people  were  slaves,  the 
Medici  had  given  them  much  to  be  proud  of.  What 
Cosmo  and  Lorenzo  had  done  for  San  Marco,  they 
had  done  for  every  quarter  of  the  city.  The  tokens 
of  their  munificence  remain  to  this  day,  and  have 
gone  far  for  four  hundred  years  to  make  Italy  a  shrine 
dear  to  the  pilgrim  of  art  or  of  devotion.  But  the 
pride  and  greed  of  the  rulers  had  taken  all  this  grati- 
fication out  of  the  sweat  and  blood  of  the  people. 
And  in  Lorenzo,  who  was  now  the  despot  of  the  hour, 
both  the  greatness  and  the  wickedness  of  his  family 
seemed  to  have  culminated.  He  had  secured  his  po- 
sition by  the  murder  of  his  brother.  "  He  had  first 
conciliated  the  affection  of  the  higher  and  the  devotion 
of  the  lower  classes,  by  his  munificence  and  works  of 
general  utility,  and  then  had  extinguished  every  spark 
of  personal  independence."  Sagacious  but  cruel,  re- 
fined but  without  honor,  cultured  but  corrupt,  of  most 
exquisite  tastes  but  of  equally  profligate  habits,  writing 
a  sonnet  in  praise  of  some  virtue  in  the  morning  and 
devoting  the  night  ensuing  to  debaucheries,  neither 
fearing  God  nor  regarding  man  where  he  had  any 
slightest  desire  to  accomplish,  shrinking  from  neither 
the  use  of  poison  nor  of  stiletto  if  one  life  or  a  hundred 
stood  in  his  way,  Lorenzo  was  magnificent,  to  be  sure, 
as  the  ages  have  called  him,  but  it  was  the  magnifi- 
cence which  Milton  has  ascribed  to  Satan  himself. 
Such  was  the  splendid  fiend  who  was  lording  it  over 
the  Florentines  when  the  monk  of  Ferrara  came  to 
San  Marco.  And  "  like  prince,  like  people,"  he  had 
made  his  subjects  drunken  with  the  wine  of  his  own 
intoxication.  He  had  done  his  best  to  turn  Florence 


BECOMES  ACQUAINTED  WITH  FLORENCE.  88 

into  a  pagan  city,  and  had  well-nigh  succeeded.  He 
had  favored,  of  course,  the  revival  of  ancient  learn- 
ing, and  imparted  great  enthusiasm  to  the  pursuits  of 
heathen  literature,  until  pagan  manners  were  affected 
by  the  better  classes,  and  even  the  clergy  had  come  to 
set  a  value  upon  the  authority  of  a  classic  author  above 
that  of  Isaiah  or  St.  Paul,  and  an  ancient  statue  of 
Pan  or  Jove  was  regarded  with  a  reverence  greater 
than  was  due  to  an  image  of  the  Virgin  or  the  Crucifix. 
Though  if  the  latter  were  elegantly  carved  they  might 
of  course  be  admitted  to  the  artistic  pantheon. 

So  the  monk  becomes  acquainted  with  Florence,  but 
he  finds  that  Florence  is  viler  than  Ferrara.  He  can- 
not escape  from  that  terrible  thought  of  the  "  wrath 
to  come,"  the  wrath  that  must  come,  as  God  himself 
is  true,  and  just,  and  holy.  If  earth  will  not  purge  it- 
self, the  heavens  must  break,  and  let  down  their  floods 
of  fire  and  brimstone.  He  preaches  now  and  then  in 
Florence ;  but  hearers  are  few  and  indifferent,  twenty- 
five  or  thirty  in  his  audience  —  men  in  general  prefer 
a  different  fare.  And  so  he  is  sent  out  to  preach  in 
various  towns  of  Lombardy ;  this  in  the  end  of  1486. 

Everywhere  he  finds  the  same  cloud  of  wrath  im- 
pending. His  very  soul  is  overwhelmed  within  him. 
His  nights  are  spent  in  prayers  and  tears,  and  when  he 
slumbers  there  are  those  visions  of  the  wrath  to  come, 
the  sword  of  God  hanging  over  Italy.  Here  at  last 
his  mouth  is  opened,  and  he  speaks  like  the  messenger 
of  God.  He  finds  response.  The  people  begin  to  see 
dimly  what  he  sees  so  clearly.  They  come  in  multi- 
tudes. He  begins  to  feel  that  he  has  not  mistaken 
his  mission.  About  this  time  he  is  called  to  attend  a 
meeting  of  the  chapter  of  his  order  in  which  were  to 
be  discussed  certain  doctrines  of  theology,  and  certain 


84  SAVONAROLA. 


questions  of  discipline.    For  the  dogmas  of  theology  in 
question,  or  against  them,  he  has  nothing  to  say.    They 
seem  to  him  of  little  moment.     The  monk  sits  silent, 
indifferent,  and  unobserved.     But  when  the  questions 
of  discipline  are  up,  his  spirit  is   aroused.    Discipline, 
-he  thinks  there  is  need  enough  of  that !    It  is  not  a 
doctrinal  but  a  moral  reformation  that  is  the  church's 
crying  need.     "In  the  ancient  times  the  Church  had 
wooden  chalices  and  golden  prelates:    now,  she  has 
golden   chalices  and   wooden  prelates."     He  scathes 
the  vices  and  corruption  of  the  clergy  like  an  old 
prophet.     Among  his  listeners  there  is  Pico  della  Mi- 
randola,  the  most  learned  man  of  his  age,  one  who  has 
large  influence  at  the  Florentine  court,  and  who  is  ad- 
mired by  the  great  Lorenzo  for  his  learning.     He  is 
won  to  the  side  and  to  the  friendship  of  the  fiery  friar. 
He  recognizes  the  truth  and  the  genius  that  are  in  the 
man.     He  informs  Lorenzo,  who,  bad  as  he  is,  is  yet 
willing  to  gather  into  Florence  all  genius,  whether  in 
religion  or  anything  else,  as  a  trophy  of  his  own  mag- 
nificence.    He  wishes  this  wonderful  friar  to  be  re- 
called to  his  convent  and  retained  there,  and  his  wish 
is  law.     Because  his  superiors  summon  him,  to  whom 
he  has  vowed  obedience,  Savonarola  returns  to  Flor- 
ence, not  because  the  great  Lorenzo  wishes  it.    He  has 
only  feelings  of  repugnance  for  the  tyrant.     His  very 
return  will  only  hasten  that  bitter  conflict  with  the 
Medici  and  all  their  purposes,  towards  which  he  is  be- 
ing inevitably  carried.     He  has  little  thought  of  any 
new  successes  as  a  preacher  in  Florence,  but  Pico  has 
spread   great   reports   of   his   genius  and  his  power. 
Men  come  to  his  lectures  in  the  convent.     There  is 
something  fresh  and  forceful  in  the  man,  something 
different  from  the  ordinary  monkish  chaff,  something 


LECTURES  IN  SAN  MARCO.  85 

weird  and  fascinating,  moreover,  in  his  exposition  of 
the  Apocalypse,  and  his  application  of  its  visions  to  the 
times  and  the  people.  He  dwells  in  the  terrors  mainly, 
and  yet  he  does  not  ignore  the  gentler  side  of  the  gos- 
pel. Hear  this  on  the  love  of  Jesus  Christ.  "  The  love 
of  Jesus  Christ  is  to  be  seen  in  that  warm  affection 
for  Him  which  leads  the  faithful  to  wish  that  his  soul 
may  become  almost  a  part  of  that  of  Christ,  and  that 
the  living  principle  in  the  Lord  may  be  reproduced  in 
himself,  not  in  the  way  of  an  external  image  but  as  an 
inward  and  divine  inspiration.  This  love  is  omnipo- 
tent, uniting  the  finite  creature  with  the  Infinite  Crea- 
tor. Man,  in  fact,  rises  continually  from  humanity  to 
something  divine  when  he  is  animated  by  this  love, 
which  is  the  sweetest  of  all  affections,  penetrates  the 
soul,  acquires  a  mastery  over  the  body,  and  causes 
the  faithful  to  walk  on  earth,  rapt  as  it  were  in  the 
spirit."  1  This  monk  had  something  to  say  worth  the 
hearing.  He  spoke  to  men  out  of  the  Word  of  God 
and  his  own  costly  experience.  He  was  no  ignorant 
prater  or  retailer  of  old  fables.  Moreover  he  was  in 
deep  sympathy  with  the  wrongs  of  the  people,  while  he 
was  both  indignant  and  compassionate  towards  their 
hypocrisy  and  sin.  The  convent  chapel  is  too  narrow 
to  hold  all  who  wish  to  hear  him.  They  fill  the  clois- 
ters and  the  court.  He  must  go  to  the  cathedral.  He 
is  getting  a  strong  grip  upon  the  city's  conscience.  He 
spares  no  class  from  the  Medici  down.  His  boldness 
brings  him  into  conflict  with  Lorenzo.  He  is  warned 
that  he  must  be  more  moderate.  He  understands  that 
those  who  admonish  him  are  from  the  neighborhood  of 
the  palace.  "Go  tell  your  master,"  he  thunders,  "to 
prepare  to  repent  of  his  sins,  for  the  Lord  spares  no 
one,  and  has  no  fear  of  the  princes  of  the  earth !  " 
1  Villari,  i.,  109. 


86  SAVONAROLA. 

A  month  or  two  after,  he  is  chosen  prior  of  San  Marco, 
the  institution  which  has  been  built  and  adorned  and 
sustained  by  the  Medici,  but  it  makes  no  change  in  his 
fidelity.  He  feels  his  responsibility  to  God  alone.  It 
had  been  the  invariable  custom  for  the  newly-elected 
prior  to  go  immediately  upon  his  election  and  pay 
homage  to  Lorenzo.  He  ignored  the  precedent  ut- 
terly. He  knew  the  wickedness  of  the  man.  He 
knew  how  he  was  oppressing  and  debauching  the 
people.  Wha,t  concord  could  there  be  between  Christ 
and  Belial  ?  How  could  he  pay  respects  to  a  tyrant 
for  whom  he  had  only  abhorrence  and  detestation? 
He  could  not  plunge  into  such  an  abyss  of  self-con- 
tempt. He  would  not  so  wrong  his  conscience,  and 
stultify  the  truth  which  he  had  spoken  in  the  ears  of 
all  Florence.  The  tyrant  knows  the  monk's  power 
and  is  very  politic.  He  thinks  it  better  to  propitiate 
than  to  crush  him.  He  sends  rich  presents  to  the 
convent,  and  large  donations  to  the  poor;  but  it  is 
of  no  avail.  He  sends  for  a  rival  preacher,  if  pos- 
sible to  preach  the  prior  down,  and  that  too  fails,  for 
the  people  have  learned  to  love  their  great  preacher, 
and  have  faith  in  him  ;  they  know  him  for  a  true,  and 
honest,  and  godly  man.  And  so  he  preaches  on, 
and  all  Florence  listens.  Lorenzo,  too,  believes  in 
him,  though  he  hates  him.  The  following  year,  1492, 
Lorenzo  is  taken  with  his  final  illness,  and  as  he  ap- 
proaches death  he  wants  a  confessor.  "  For  whom 
shall  we  send  ?  "  ask  his  attendants.  "  Send  for  the 
prior  of  San  Marco ;  he  is  an  honest  man,"  said  the  dy- 
ing reprobate.  "  No  other  ever  dared  say  No  !  to  me." 
And  the  friar  did  not  say  No  to  this  request.  Before 
he  will  absolve  him,  however,  he  demands  three  things. 
"  First,  it  is  necessary  that  you  should  have  a  full  and 


PATRIOTISM.  87 

lively  faith  in  the  mercy  of  God."  "  That  I  have  most 
fully."  "  Second,  you  must  restore  that  which  you 
have  unjustly  taken,  or  enjoin  your  sons  to  restore  it 
for  you."  The  tyrant  hesitates,  but  finally  assents. 
"Third,  you  must  restore  liberty  to  the  people  of 
Florence."  At  this  Lorenzo  turns  his  face  to  the  wall 
and  is  silent.  But  the  monk  knows  how  to  say  No, 
and  leaves  the  sick  man  to  die  unshriven.  It  is  a 
drawn  battle  between  greed  and  remorse. 

Savonarola  now  appears  before  us  in  a  second  his- 
toric aspect,  as  the  Restorer  of  liberty  to  Florence. 

This  year  of  Lorenzo's  death  was  a  crisis,  not  only 
in  the  affairs  of  Florence,  but  of  all  Italy.  His 
shrewdness  and  moderation  and  tact  in  political  affairs 
had  made  him  a  controlling  influence  throughout  the 
peninsula.  He  had  held  the  balance  of  power.  His 
position,  both  geographically  and  dynamically,  had 
made  him  a  mediator  between  the  chiefs  of  the  dif- 
ferent states.  His  son  Piero,  who  now  succeeded  him, 
was,  if  possible,  more  vicious,  but  less  politic.  He  was 
weak  at  the  very  points  where  his  father  had  been 
strong.  He  was  equally  selfish  and  greedy  of  power, 
but  was  utterly  ignorant  in  matters  of  government, 
so  that  he  was  despised  by  the  people ;  and  his  rude 
and  vulgar  manners  made  him  detested  by  the  nobles 
and  the  neighboring  princes.  There  had  been  some 
things  to  qualify  and  render  tolerable  the  tyranny  of 
the  father ;  that  of  the  son  was  unmitigated  and  un- 
bearable. In  the  same  year  Pope  Innocent  VIII. 
died,  and  the  infamous  Roderigo  Borgia  x  bought  the 
succession  to  the  papal  chair.  The  character  of  the 
man  is  too  utterly  detestable  to  describe.2  The  only 

1  Alexander  VI. 

3  Even  Roscoe,  who  affects  to  doubt  many  of  the  stories  of 


88  SAVONAROLA. 

language  that  could  compass  it,  would  be  unfit  to 
write,  or  even  to  whisper.  Debauchery,  venality,  and 
murder  are  not  terms  sufficiently  specific.  This  man 
had  in  view  no  less  an  object  than  the  subjection  of 
all  the  states  of  Italy,  and  their  partition  among  his 
illegitimate  sons.  Piero  de  Medici  was  weak  enough 
to  be  made  his  tool.  The  Pope  saw  his  way  clear, 
through  him,  to  the  ultimate  possession  of  Tuscany. 
Under  such  conditions  as  these,  what  had  poor  Florence 
to  hope  for,  but  a  change  from  the  control  of  the 
Medici  to  that  of  the  Borgias ;  or,  as  the  proverb  has 
it,  from  the  frying-pan  into  the  fire  ?  What  was  to 
prevent  ?  Only  the  fact  that  God  himself  was  work- 
ing ;  an  element  in  the  problem  that  neither  Piero, 
nor  Borgia,  nor  the  Florentines  had  taken  into  ac- 
count. 

Savonarola  kept  on  preaching  ;  some  late  facts  had 
added  to  his  popularity.  That  Lorenzo  the  Magnif- 
icent had  in  his  dying  hour  chosen  him  for  his  con- 
fessor, and  that  he  had  dared  to  refuse  him  absolu- 
tion, the  superb  courage  of  the  man,  the  dauntless 
independence,  the  growing  freedom  of  his  speech,  his 
outspoken  championship  of  the  liberties  of  the  people, 
the  incontestible  fact  also  that  he  had  prophesied  the 
death  both  of  Lorenzo  and  the  late  pope,  —  all  this 
conspired  to  make  him  what  he  had  now  incontrovert- 
ibly  become,  the  most  prominent  citizen  of  Florence. 
To  him  all  the  Florentines  were  looking,  though  they 
hardly  knew  for  what.  In  him  they  hoped,  but  they 
could  not  have  defined  their  hopes.  They  were  like  a 
flock  of  sheep  surrounded  by  wolves,  a  wolf  indeed 

Alexander's  crimes,  calls  him  "  The  scourge  of  Christendom,  and 
the  opprobrium  of  the  human  race."  —  Life  of  Lorenzo  (Bonn's 
ed.),  p.  336. 


CHARLES  VIII.   OF  FRANCE.  89 

within  the  fold,  and  they  looking  piteously  towards 
their  shepherd.  And  the  shepherd  was  faithful,  even 
to  the  laying  down  of  his  life  for  the  sheep.  One 
wolf  broke  in  upon  them  for  whose  advent  they  had 
not  looked,  but  whose  coining,  and  the  direction  from 
which  he  would  come,  Savonarola  had  not  obscurely 
predicted.  "  A  storm  will  break  in,"  said  he,  "  a 
storm  that  will  shake  the  mountains ;  over  the  Alps, 
there  will  come  against  Italy  one  like  Cyrus,  of  whom 
Isaiah  wrote."  And  that  very  year  Charles  VIII.  of 
France  actually  did  come,  crashing  down  into  Italy 
with  a  great  army,  to  seize  the  vacant  throne  of  Naples. 
There  was  no  quarrel  between  France  and  Florence, 
but  Tuscany  lay  directly  in  the  route  of  the  invading 
army,  and  was  an  attractive  field  for  conquest.  Piero, 
weak  and  cowardly,  went  to  meet  the  invader,  and,  to 
propitiate  Charles,  put  the  only  defenses  of  the  inter- 
mediate country  into  his  hands,  and  thus  "  opened  to 
him  the  defenseless  city,"  with  all  its  treasures  and 
the  lives  of  its  citizens,  "  without  any  conditions  of  com- 
pensation or  guaranties  of  peace."  Then,  for  the  first 
time,  the  indolent  Florentine  blood  boiled  with  indig- 
nation. The  people  were  basely  betrayed  by  one  who 
should,  and  who  could  have  defended  them.  The  whole 
city  was  one  seething  cauldron  of  defenseless  and  help- 
less wrath.  There  is  only  one  calm  spirit,  and  all  eyes 
turn  towards  Savonarola,  the  prophet  of  the  Lord. 
He,  if  any  one,  can  tell  them  what  to  do.  He  is  the 
man  who  dwells  unmoved  in  the  secret  place  of  the 
Most  High  and  under  the  shadow  of  the  Almighty. 
They  throng  to  the  cathedral,  and  what  strange  di- 
rections they  hear  from  his  lips  !  They  become  still 
from  their  tumultuous  passion,  as  the  winds  and  waves 
when  another  voice  said  Peace !  to  the  storm  on  Galilee. 


90  SAVONAROLA. 

"  Your  first  business,"  he  says,  "  is  repentance.  Re- 
pent, for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand !  O 
Florence,  the  time  of  thy  music  and  dancing  is  at  an 
end ;  now  is  the  time  for  pouring  out  rivers  of  tears 
for  your  sins."  "  O  Lord,  who  died  for  the  love  of 
us,  and  for  our  transgressions,  pardon,  O  Lord,  these 
poor  Florentines."  The  writers  of  the  time  called  it 
a  miracle.  The  people  were  like  little  children  in  his 
hands,  subdued,  quiet,  penitent.  They  send  an  em- 
bassy to  the  camp  of  the  king,  with  Savonarola  at  its 
head,  clad  in  his  monkish  garb  :  with  the  dignity  of  an 
old  prophet  he  appears  before  the  invader,  recognizes 
his  divine  mission  as  God's  instrument,  and  with  the 
authority  born  of  the  consciousness  of  his  own  mission, 
equally  divine,  commands  him  to  show  mercy,  as  he 
hopes  for  mercy  at  the  hands  of  God.  "  If  thou  for- 
gettest  the  work  for  which  He  sends  thee,  He  will 
choose  another  to  fulfill  it,  and  will  let  the  hand  of 
His  wrath  fall  upon  thee  with  terrible  scourges.  I 
say  this  to  thee  in  the  name  of  the  Lord." 

By  general  consent  Savonarola  becomes  now  the 
legislator  of  Florence.  He  holds  such  a  power  as 
neither  Piero,  nor  Lorenzo,  nor  even  Cosmo  had  ever 
known.  Upon  the  expulsion  of  the  Medici,  and  the 
speedy  departure  of  the  French  army,  the  government 
was  utterly  disorganized.  The  people  had  so  long  been 
treated  as  chattels,  or  puppets,  moved  by  the  will  of 
their  masters,  that  they  seemed  incapable  of  organiza- 
tion, or  even  of  harmonious  action.  Upon.  Savonarola 
devolved  the  chief  burden  of  framing  a  constitution. 
He  keeps  on  with  his  preaching.  He  drives  home  the 
idea  that  all  wholesome  government  must  begin  with 
personal  reformation,  amendment  of  life.  "  Seek  first 
the  kingdom  of  God,"  he  cries.  That  year  is  the 


CONFLICT  WITH  ALEXANDER  VI.  91 

miracle  of  civil  history.  He  reestablishes  the  republic 
upon  the  basis  of  three  or  four  simple  principles: 
1.  Fear  God.  2.  Prefer  the  weal  of  the  republic  to 
thine  own.  3.  A  general  amnesty.  4.  A  grand  coun- 
cil, after  the  pattern  of  Venice,  but  without  a  doge. 
They  had  had  enough  of  doges,  and  chiefs,  and  self- 
seeking  masters.  He  himself  might  have  been  king 
if  he  would,  but  the  simple-hearted  man  never  thought 
of  such  a  thing.  "  Jesus  Christ,"  he  says,  "  shall  be 
the  only  King  of  Florence."  And  in  their  enthusiasm 
the  multitudes  take  it  for  their  huzza,  "  Viva  Cristo ! 
Viva  Firenze !  "  For  himself  the  simple  friar  will 
have  only  his  pulpit  for  a  throne,  and  even  over  his 
pulpit  he  has  inscribed  the  legend,  "  Jesus  Christ  the 
King  of  Florence."  And  thus  for  three  years  he 
exerted,  as  Macchiavelli  asserts,  an  influence  of  un- 
precedented power.  "  Unrighteous  gains  were  given 
up,  deadly  enemies  embraced  each  other  in  love,  god- 
less sports  came  to  an  end."  Lives  of  chastity  took 
the  place  of  incontinence  and  debauchery.  The  lewd 
scenes  of  the  carnival  gave  way  to  the  pure  and  beau- 
tiful rites  of  Palm  Sunday.  People  made  bonfires 
and  cast  into  them  their  obscene  books.  It  really 
looked  for  a  time  as  if  the  kingdom  which  is  right- 
eousness, and  peace,  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  had 
come.  But  sterner  scenes  than  any  he  had  yet  en- 
countered were  preparing  for  the  good  monk,  and  we 
are  brought  now  to  the  last  act  of  the  drama,  in  which 
he  encounters  the  wrath  of  the  Borgia. 

At  first  Alexander  had  no  special  hatred  for  Sav- 
onarola. But  now  his  cherished  project,  of  getting 
possession  of  Tuscany  for  his  own  family,  seemed  likely 
to  be  abortive.  He  had  hoped  to  deal  easily  with 
the  weak  and  wicked  Piero.  But  now  the  Medici 


92  SAVONAROLA. 

were  banished,  and  a  price  had  been  set  upon  their 
heads.    And  things  in  Florence  looked  hopeful,  neither 
for  their  restoration,  nor  for  his  getting  the  prize  he 
coveted  in  any  other  way.     He  knew  that  it  was  the 
prior's  work,  and  so  long   as  he  was    exerting  that 
mighty  sway  over  the  people,  through  his  pulpit,  the 
Pope's  designs  must  be  futile.     Tidings  come  to  his 
ears,   moreover,   that    Savonarola   is   hoping   for  the 
reformation  of   all  Italy,  upon    the  Florentine   plan. 
He  is  preaching  scathing  sermons  upon  the  papal  in- 
iquities and  rapacities.    His  blows  are  felt  even  within 
the  walls  of  San  Angelo.      This  man  must  be  put 
down,  but  cautiously.      In  July,  1495,  he  writes  a 
kindly  letter   to   Savonarola,   and    summons    him   to 
Rome.     It  is  cunning,  sounds  like  Herod's  counsel  to 
the  wise  men.     "Much  beloved  Son:  We  hear  that 
among  all  the  laborers  in  the  Lord's  vineyard  you 
show  the  most  zeal.      This  greatly  delights  us,  and 
we  give  praise  therefor  to  Almighty  God.     We  have 
heard  that  you  affirm  that   what  you  have   said  of 
future  events  proceeds  not  from  yourself  but   from 
God,  and  we  are  desirous  to  discourse  with  you  in 
order   that  we   may,  through   your  mediation,  know 
better  what  is  pleasing  to  God,  and  practice  the  same. 
Therefore,  we  exhort  you,  in  all  holy  obedience,  to 
come  to  us  without  delay,  who  will  receive  you  with 
love  and  with  charity."     The  fox !     The  treachery  is 
too  palpable.     It  is  the  invitation  of  the  spider  to  the 
fly.     Fortunately,  Savonarola  was  sick  at  the  time, 
and  had  a  valid  excuse  for  remaining  at  home.     Then 
a  cardinal's   hat   is  offered    him,  and  the  Pope  pro- 
poses  to   make   him  Archbishop   of  Florence.      The 
monk's  righteous  indignation  is  aroused  afresh  at  the 
insult  to  his  sincerity  and  honor.     "  Does  he  think  to 


WAR    TO   THE  KNIFE.  93 

tempt  me  with  a  red  hat?"  and  he  sends  back  the 
indignant  answer,  "  I  will  have  no  other  red  hat  from 
you  than  that  which  you  have  already  given  to  other 
servants  of  my  Master,  —  the  red  hat  of  flame." 
Then  comes  an  imperative  command  to  hasten  imme- 
diately to  Rome.  Savonarola  is  really  sick,  and, 
moreover,  worn  almost  to  a  shadow  by  his  superhuman 
labors,  and  he  cannot  endure  the  journey.  But  Rod- 
erigo  Borgia  is  not  to  be  outwitted  nor  defeated  in 
such  wise.  He  forbids  him  to  preach.  But  the  monk 
takes  his  authority  from  a  higher  power.  The  ban 
and  interdict  are  threatened,  and  the  monk  keeps  011 
with  what  strength  he  can.  There  are  plots  to  assas- 
sinate him.  The  Medici  have  their  partisans  in  Flor- 
ence who  gradually  get  elected  into  the  council.  A 
pestilence  breaks  out  in  the  city,  and  the  ignorant 
people,  who  have  come  to  look  upon  Savonarola  as 
little  less  than  a  god,  get  to  be  impatient  because  he 
does  not  work  miracles  for  their  relief ;  a  breath,  a 
murmur,  a  susurrus  is  in  the  air.  It  is  fanned  with 
skill  and  energy  by  the  friends  of  the  Medici.  It 
grows  and  threatens  ill.  But  the  monk  is  calm,  God- 
fearing, man-loving,  through  it  all.  The  plague  breaks 
out  in  his  convent,  where  two  hundred  and  fifty  friars 
are  living  together.  Rich  Florentines  come  and  offer 
their  villas  to  him  that  he  may  retreat  from  the  con- 
tagion. Retreat !  he  never  retreated  from  anything 
but  sin.  But  he  gladly  accepts  them  for  his  poor, 
frightened  monks.  The  Pope's  son  is  assassinated, 
and  Savonarola,  detesting  the  man,  nevertheless  pities 
the  father,  and  sends  him  a  kindly  letter  of  condolence, 
but  utterly  free  from  any  unmanly  concession  or  breath 
of  flattery.  And  so  he  comes  to  the  last  year  of  his 
life ;  he  has  already  predicted  that  he  shall  not  see 


94  SAVONAROLA. 

its  close.  He  perceives  the  toils  thickening  around 
him ;  but  he  is  courageous,  and  makes  manly  Chris- 
tian warfare  to  the  end.  He  is  excommunicated  as 
a  heretic,  though  no  saint  of  the  Roman  calendar 
ever  held  more  faithfully  to  all  the  dogmas  of  the 
Church.  But  the  Pope,  he  knows,  and  all  the  world 
knows,  is  not  that  Church's  lawful  head.  His  tiara 
has  been  purchased  by  open  and  shameless  bribery. 
And  Savonarola,  as  his  last  grand  stand  for  truth 
and  righteousness,  has  written  letters  summoning  the 
crowned  heads  of  Christendom  to  unite  in  calling  a 
general  council  to  depose  this  pretended  pope,  and 
heal  the  wounds  of  the  Church.  One  of  his  messengers 
is  assassinated  on  his  journey,  and  a  letter  found  upon 
him.  It  is  sent  to  Alexander,  whose  ill-will  is  now 
inflamed  to  the  pitch  of  ferocity,  —  the  friar's  doom 
is  inevitably  sealed.  While  this  has  been  going  on, 
however,  a  strange  thing  has  occurred  in  Florence, 
which  sharply  turns  the  popular  feeling  against  the 
man  who  has  been,  till  now,  the  object  of  their  love 
and  veneration. 

A  monk  of  another  order,  jealous  of  Savonarola's 
good  name,  has  offered  to  test  the  question  of  his 
orthodoxy  by  appealing  to  the  ordeal  of  fire.  Sa- 
vonarola believes  in  no  such  nonsense  ;  but  one  of 
his  devoted  monks  insists  upon  accepting  the  chal- 
lenge in  his  behalf.  The  fire  is  kindled,  and  the  two 
parties  are  ready  to  walk  through  it.  A  petty  discus- 
sion arises  about  accessories,  and  is  kept  up  until  it 
amounts  almost  to  a  public  riot.  All  Florence  is  upon 
the  scene,  the  dispute  lasts  till  nightfall,  and  neither 
party  has  yet  entered  the  flames,  and  a  heavy  rain 
closes  the  day  and  extinguishes  the  fire.  The  populace 
have  been  disappointed  of  their  treat,  and  the  whole 


THE  END.  95 

weight  of  their  indignation  falls  upon  Savonarola. 
What  mattered  their  accessories  to  him  if  he  were  a 
true  prophet  ?  They  accuse  him  of  being  an  im- 
postor, —  him  the  best  and  truest  friend  that  Florence 
ever  had.  Plainly  his  career  is  drawing  to  a  close. 
Alexander  will  find  slight  barriers  interposing  now 
between  him  and  his  victim.  The  prior  is  seized,  with 
two  of  his  monks  who  have  been  his  most  faithful  and 
loving  disciples,  and  made  a  prisoner  until  it  shall  be 
decided  whether  he  shall  be  tried  in  Florence,  or  sent 
to  Rome  to  be  dealt  with  immediately  by  the  Pope. 
It  is  settled  at  last  that  he  shall  be  tried  at  home,  on 
the  charge  of  being  an  impostor.  Florence,  whose 
brightest  crown  has  been  his  life  of  glorious  self-sacri- 
fice, shall  have  for  her  deepest  infamy  that  his  death 
was  within  her  gates,  and  by  her  own  faithless  hand. 
Day  after  day,  for  six  successive  days,  he  is  dragged 
forth  from  his  dungeon  and  examined,  as  the  phrase 
is,  by  torture.  Six  days  in  succession,  he  is  raised  by 
his  wrists  strapped  together  behind  his  back,  until  his 
muscles  are  lacerated  and  his  bones  disjointed.  He 
faints  and  raves  alternately  under  the  agony,  but 
clings  to  the  truth,  —  he  has  not  taught  of  himself,  but 
has  striven  to  be  God's  faithful  messenger.  That  is 
all  that  examination  can  get  out  of  him,  and  upon  that 
he  is  sentenced  to  be  hanged  and  burned.  Hanged 
and  burned  he  is  forthwith,  his  last  words,  as  he  goes 
cheerfully  up  to  the  gibbet  and  the  flame,  "My  Lord 
was  pleased  to  die  for  my  sins,  why  should  I  not  be 
glad  to  give  up  my  poor  life  for  love  to  Him  ?  "  And 
with  some  little  faint  flickerings  of  the  liberty  he  had 
sought  to  give  to  his  beloved  people,  Florence  and 
Italy  sank  back  once  more  into  the  old  and  indolent 
slavery  of  the  mediaeval  centuries. 


V. 

LATIMER. 

A.  D.  1480-1555. 

IN  all  ages,  more  or  less,  there  is  a  new  school  of  thought  rising  up 
under  the  eyes  of  an  older  school  of  thought.  And  probably  in  all  ages 
the  men  of  the  old  school  regard  with  some  little  anxiety  the  ways  of  the 
men  of  the  new  school.  —  FEED.  SEEBOHM. 


V. 

LATIMER. 
A.  D.  1480-1555. 

ABOUT  a  hundred  years  have  passed  since  Wiclif 
rested  from  his  labors  in  the  quiet  rectory  of  Lutter- 
worth.  During  the  lapse  of  that  century,  we  have  wit- 
nessed the  transference  of  the  work  which  he  inaugu- 
rated, to  the  distant  state  of  Bohemia,  where  John  Hus 
raised  Wiclif 's  spark  into  a  flame,  which  was  met  by 
the  counter-fires  of  the  Council  of  Constance.  And 
still  later  we  have  seen  the  strange,  sporadic,  almost 
miraculous  work  of  Savonarola  at  Florence,  appear- 
ing like  a  meteor  out  of  the  darkness,  and  falling  back 
like  a  meteor  into  the  darkness  again.  And  now  we 
are  ready  to  ask,  How  has  the  good  work  been  faring 
meanwhile  in  England?  I  have  known  forest  fires, 
after  having  been  subdued,  and  apparently  extin- 
guished, to  work  for  a  long  time  under  the  surface, 
fed  by  dry  roots  and  by  long  accumulations  of  fallen 
leaves,  and  finally,  after  weeks  or  even  months  had 
passed  by  and  all  thought  of  conflagration  had  been 
quieted,  to  break  forth  with  greater  vigor  than  ever 
under  some  favoring  wind  or  some  protracted  drought. 
Thus  for  a  century  after  his  death  Wiclif's  work  went 
on,  obscurely,  but  without  cessation,  under  the  surface 
of  England's  social  and  political  life.  Much  had  been 
done  to  check  it.  Edict  after  edict  had  been  promul- 


100  LATIMER. 

gated  against  his  writings.  His  books,  and  even  his 
bones,  had  been  burned  by  the  Council  of  Constance. 
Many  of  his  avowed  disciples  had  been  drawn  into 
anarchy,  and  had  brought  down  upon  his  cause  the 
arm  not  only  of  ecclesiastical  but  of  civil  authority. 
His  movement  was  seized  upon  by  politicians,  as  re- 
ligious movements  so  often  have  been  by  men  who 
sought  to  avail  themselves  of  contemporary  excite- 
ments for  the  promotion  of  their  own  objects.  And 
so  Wiclifism  —  or,  as  it  came  now  to  be  called  in  con- 
tempt, Lollardism  —  had  come  to  be  not  only  an  ob- 
ject of  scorn  to  those  who  were  in  authority,  but  a 
profession  of  peril  to  those  who  adopted  it.  "It  is 
always  the  fate  of  popular  movements,  that  the  foolish 
and  the  bad  get  hold  of  the  skirts  of  the  wise  and  the 
good ;  that,  like  the  camp-followers  of  an  army,  all 
manner  of  vagrants  attach  themselves  to  soldiers  of 
truth  and  godliness."  1 

Nevertheless,  the  true  doctrines  preached  by  Wiclif 
never  died  out  of  England.  They  had  taken  a  deep 
hold  upon  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  common  peo- 
ple. There  probably  was  no  time  during  the  century 
when  his  followers,  had  they  dared  to  declare  them- 
selves, could  not  have  been  counted  by  thousands. 
His  poor  preachers  had  gone  up  and  down  the  land, 
and  had  come  to  be  loved  and  venerated  in  the  cabins 
of  the  poor,  as  much  as  the  mendicant  monks  were 
scorned  and  detested.  His  tracts,  and  especially  dif- 
ferent portions  of  his  New  Testament,  were  copied 
and  passed  from  hand  to  hand,  to  be  read  to  little  com- 
panies of  devout  believers  by  the  cottage  rush-light, 
and  sometimes  in  the  open  fields  among  the  cattle. 
Herdsmen,  ploughboys,  and  mechanics  taught  each 
1  Stoughton,  Our  English  Bible,  p.  50. 


WICLIF'S  INFLUENCE.  101 

other  the  Commandments,  the  Creed,  and  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  in  their  own  English  tongue.  Christ  and  the 
apostles  seemed  very  near  and  precious  to  them,  speak- 
ing in  the  simple  language  of  the  common  people,  and 
110  longer  in  the  outlandish  Latin  of  the  monks.  So 
the  fire  burned  vigorously  under  the  surface  of  social 
life  ;  so  vigorously,  that  Longland,  Bishop  of  Lincoln, 
in  a  single  visitation  of  his  diocese,  had  upwards  of 
two  hundred  of  these  simple  students  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, principally  mechanics  and  farm-laborers,  brought 
before  him  as  heretics.1  They  knew  nothing  of  the 
dialectics  of  the  schoolmen,  but  they  had  abundance 
of  good,  hard,  English  common  sense.  They  could 
see  and  appreciate  the  difference  between  the  religion 
that  was  preached  by  the  fishermen  of  Galilee,  and 
that  which  was  practiced  by  the  monks  of  their  own 
time.  "  Talk  about  changing  the  bread  and  wine  into 
the  flesh  and  blood  of  the  Creator  of  the  world,"  say 
they  ;  "  let  us  put  a  mouse  into  the  pyx,  and  we  shall 
see  whether  it  be  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  God."  One 
of  them  was  audacious  enough  to  try  the  experiment, 
and  Longland  had  him  burnt  for  it.2 

Thus  for  a  hundred  years  the  doctrines  of  Wiclif 
made  their  way  among  the  common  people.  There 
was  no  great  prophet  to  rise  up  and  fill  his  place  in 
the  Church,  and  so  make  his  reform  conspicuous  in 
England.  Hus  was  his  real  successor,  and  he  was 
away  in  Bohemia.  His  real  successor  in  his  own  coun- 
try was  the  Bible  which  he  had  left  behind  him ;  and 
the  book  was  a  silent  preacher,  that  could  not  be  sum- 
moned before  bishops  and  councils ;  that  could  not  be 
efficiently  tried,  and  condemned,  and  put  out  of  the 
way ;  that  did  its  work,  upon  the  whole,  far  better 
1  Demaus,  Life  of  Latimer,  p.  65.  2  Id.,  p.  66. 


102  LA  TIMER. 

than  a  living  preacher,  and  where  it  most  needed  to 
be  done,  in  the  great  heart  of  the  commonalty.  It 
leavened  the  lower  and  middle  classes,  and  so  grandly 
prepared  the  way  for  the  coming  of  another  prophet 
of  the  living  voice,  when  the  hour  should  strike  for 
reform  to  be  made  prominent  again  as  a  movement  in 
the  church  and  the  state. 

And  now  we  must  note  one  of  those  strange  coinci- 
dences of  history  which  more  than  hint  at  the  opera- 
tion of  a  divine  plan  and  purpose  underneath  all  hu- 
man movements,  which,  let  the  passions  of  men  play 
as  they  will,  are  sure  to  bring  about  the  intent  of 
God.  We  remarked  in  the  last  lecture  that  the  work 
of  Savonarola  in  Italy  had  no  visible  connection 
with  any  great  reformatory  movement  either  precedent 
or  subsequent  to  itself;  that  it  was  islanded,  so  to 
speak,  in  the  sea  of  history.  And  that  is  true.  But 
even  as  an  island  often  has  an  invisible  connection 
with  the  neighboring  continent,  in  some  subaqueous 
reef,  or  some  shoal  or  spit  of  sand  or  rocks,  which  is 
only  to  be  detected  by  the  plummet,  so  the  work  of 
Savonarola  had  a  real  though  invisible  connection 
with  that  of  Latimer  and  the  great  Reformation  of  the 
English  Church  in  the  times  of  Henry  VIII.  and  Ed- 
ward VI.  That  great  free  movement  of  students  from 
one  university  to  another,  of  which  I  have  spoken  so 
often,  carried  some  influences,  in  a  quiet  but  most 
effective  way,  from  Italy  even  into  England.  The  en- 
thusiasm for  the  new  learning,  which  Lorenzo  the 
Magnificent  had  done  so  much  to  foster,  had  drawn  to 
Florence  several  Oxford  students.  There  was  Thomas 
Linacre,  who  was  a  tutor  to  Lorenzo's  own  chil- 
dren ;  John  Colet,  who  afterwards  became  Dean  of  St. 
Paul's  in  London,  and  founded  the  famous  St.  Paul's 


JOHN   COLET.  103 

school,  and  was  biblical  lecturer  at  Oxford ;  Wil- 
liam Grocyn,  divinity  professor  in  Exeter  College,  who 
taught- Greek  to  Erasmus  and  Sir  Thomas  More  ;  and 
William  Lilly,  who  was  the  first  to  teach  Greek  in  the 
city  of  London.  These  men  came  back  to  England 
from  Florence,  bringing  not  only  the  revival  of  learn- 
ing from  the  Medicean  court,  but  a  revival  of  spiritual 
religion  in  their  own  souls  from  the  fiery  preaching 
of  the  Prior  of  San  Marco.  The  Reformation  thus 
strikes  its  roots  in  the  high  places  of  the  Church,  in 
the  halls  and  colleges,  in  lecture-rooms  and  professors' 
chairs.  It  bids  fair  now  to  become  confluent  with  the 
spirit  that  is  abroad  among  the  common  people.  John 
Colet  is  especially  to  be  noted  among  these  men.  He 
stands  first  in  this  hidden  line  of  apostolic  succession, 
next  to  Savonarola.  The  monk  of  San  Marco  left  be- 
hind him  no  better  work  than  the  conversion  of  this 
young  Englishman.  He  was  son  of  a  lord  mayor  of 
London,  born  to  fortune,  and,  better,  destined  to  per- 
petual influence  for  good.  He  seemed  to  see,  almost 
with  the  eyes  of  Savonarola  himself,  the  wickedness 
that  was  in  high  places.  "Unless  there  could  be  a 
reform  of  the  clergy,  from  the  Pope  at  the  head  down 
to  the  monks  and  the  clergymen,  he  saw  no  chance  of 
saving  the  Church.  '  Oh,  Jesu  Christ,'  he  says,  '  wash 
for  us,  not  our  feet  only,  but  also  our  hands  and  our 
head!  Otherwise  our  disordered  church  cannot  be 
far  from  death.'  "  l 

The  great  name  of  John  Colet  deserves  something 
more  than  the  mere  passing  notice  which  I  can  give  it 
here.  He  deserves  honor,  especially  in  these  times  of 
ours,  as  having  fought,  amid  circumstances  immeas- 
urably more  trying  and  oppressive,  the  same  battle 
1  Seebohm,  Protestant  Revolution,  pp.  77,  78. 


104  LA  TIMER. 

which  is  now  being  waged  under  obloquy,  against  the 
vicious  principles  and  methods  of  scholasticism.  The 
system  of  the  schoolmen  claimed  to  embrace  universal 
knowledge.  The  sceptre  which  it  extended  over  the 
entire  field,  indiscriminately  over  the  domain  of  nat- 
ural science,  and  of  philosophy,  and  of  theology,  was 
a  rigid  instrument,  composed  in  part,  of  the  old  laws 
of  earlier  logicians,  and  in  part,  of  isolated  texts  of 
Scripture.  To  this  instrument,  which  was  at  once 
sceptre  and  foot-rule,  every  new  hypothesis  in  science, 
every  new  suggestion  in  the  way  of  interpretation, 
must  be  brought,  and  judged  by  its  agreement  or 
disagreement  therewith.  Investigation  was  smothered 
and  facts  suppressed.  From  this  dogmatism  Colet 
revolted  with  all  his  soul.  The  new  learning,  which 
had  opened  to  him  the  Greek  Testament,  had  brought 
him  face  to  face  with  the  fresh  facts  of  the  gospel 
story  and  with  the  suggestive  letters  of  the  apostles ; 
he  roamed  through  them  as  through  a  garden  fra- 
grant with  the  morning  dews,  and  was  filled  with  dis- 
taste for  the  hortus  siccus  of  dried  and  labeled  speci- 
mens which  had  been  cut  from  their  natural  stocks 
and  pressed  and  deodorized  in  the  musty  pigeon-holes 
of  the  system-makers.  He  was  the  first  among  Eng- 
lish reformers  to  resist  the  traditional  belief  in  the  ver- 
bal inspiration  of  the  whole  Bible,  —  perhaps  I  should 
say  in  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  at  all,  —  and  to 
regard  it  rather  as  the  production  of  inspired  men. 
One  of  those  vital  distinctions  which  lay  at  the  heart 
of  the  new  theology  of  that  day,  and  which  is  being 
emphasized  afresh  in  these  days  of  ours.  If  the  Bible 
is  to  be  called  an  inspired  book,  then,  logically,  it 
may  be  used  as  an  arsenal  of  proof-texts  for  any  pur- 
pose whatever.  If  it  is  a  story  of  events  and  experi- 


JOHN  CO  LET.  105 

ences,  of  varying  human  moods  and  feelings,  of  divine 
self-disclosures  in  providence  and  history,  which  men 
were  authorized  and  empowered  by  an  indwelling  and 
illumining  Spirit  to  record,  then  it  is  quite  a  differ- 
ent thing,  and  cannot  be  so  used  without  traversing  its 
intent. 

Doubtless  one  may  take  a  beautiful  tree,  glorious  for 
its  wealth  of  leaf  and  blossom  and  fruitage,  and  hew 
it  branch  from  trunk,  and  cut  it  up  into  lengths  to  suit 
his  own  convenience,  and  manufacture  it  into  boxes 
and  barrels  to  hold  his  merchandise,  cribs  for  his 
com,  and  pens  for  his  cattle ;  but  let  him  not  then  ap- 
ply the  adjective  divine  to  his  manufacture,  nor  call 
upon  his  neighbors  to  worship  his  handiwork,  though 
knocked  together  out  of  heaven  -  provided  materials. 
It  is  not  divine,  but  very  human,  if  indeed  it  be  not 
inhuman.  We  will  not  worship  the  image  which  Neb- 
uchadnezzar has  set  up,  though  God  have  furnished  the 
gold.  And  this  was  John  Colet's  new  departure.  For 
this  he  was  charged  with  making  infidels,  by  men  whose 
unreasoning  belief  in  the  verbal  inspiration  of  the 
book  had  "led  men  blindfold  into  a  condition  of 
mind  in  which  they  practically  ignored  the  Scriptures 
altogether." 

Now  mark  the  succession  of  influence.  See  how  the 
light  is  passed  from  hand  to  hand,  "  the  light  of  the 
glorious  gospel  of  the  blessed  God."  Under  the  in- 
fluence of  this  apostolic  man,  John  Colet,  there  comes 
a  poor  Dutch  student,  who,  eager  for  the  new  learning, 
but  too  poor  to  go  to  Italy,  works  his  way  over  to  Eng- 
land, where,  he  has  heard,  they  can  teach  him  Greek. 
John  Colet  can  teach  him  Greek,  and  something  more. 
The  pupil,  who  soon  outstrips  his  master,  is  the  after- 
wards famous  Erasmus  of  Rotterdam;  the  man  who 


106  LA  TIMER. 

did  more  than  any  other  of  his  age,  not  even  except- 
ing Luther  himself,  to  satirize  the  monkish  ignorance 
and  ecclesiastical  follies  that  were  around  him.  He 
gives  another  mighty  influence  to  the  Reformation 
among  the  scholars,  by  editing  the  Greek  Testament 
with  a  Latin  translation.  The  book  becomes  the  talk 
of  the  universities.  It  opens  a  new  world  to  men 
who  have  become  weary  of  the  chaff  of  the  schoolmen. 
They  are  brought  for  the  first  time  into  quickening 
contact  with  the  word  of  God.  That  Greek  Testament 
of  Erasmus  is  quietly  doing  among  the  scholars  just 
what  Wiclif's  English  Testament  has  been  doing  for  a 
hundred  years  among  the  common  people.  It  will 
strike  some  mighty  practical  mind  very  soon  that  will 
use  it  in  a  practical  way.  It  falls  into  the  hands  of  a 
poor  scholar,  Thomas  Bilney  by  name,  who  has  been 
trying  to  get  ease  for  his  conscience  by  fastings  and 
vigils,  by  buying  masses  and  indulgences,  and  who 
wonders  if  there  be  any  clear  light  at  all  to  which  he 
can  betake  himself.  As  he  opens  the  book  his  eye 
lights  upon  those  words  of  St.  Paul,  so  familiar  to  us 
as  to  seem  trite,  but  fresh  and  new  to  him  as  sun- 
shine to  one  who  has  lived  through  an  Arctic  night : 
"  This  is  a  faithful  saying  and  worthy  of  all  accepta- 
tion, that  Christ  Jesus  came  into  the  world  to  save  sin- 
ners." "This  one  sentence,"  he  says,  "through  the 
power  of  God  working  on  my  heart,  in  a  manner  at 
that  time  unknown  to  me,  rejoiced  my  soul,  then  deeply 
wounded  by  a  sight  and  sense  of  my  sins,  and  almost 
in  the  depths  of  despair,  so  that  I  felt  an  inward 
comfort  and  quietness  which  I  cannot  describe ;  but  it 
caused  my  broken  heart  to  rejoice."  1  While  Bilney 

1  Tulloeh,  Leaders  of  Reformation,  p.  286  ;   Demaus,  Life  of 
Latimer,  p.  26. 


BILNETS   CONFESSION.  107 

was  at  Cambridge,  a  young  Englishman  was  there  pass- 
ing through  the  divinity  schools,  an  ardent  lover  of  the 
Church,  zealous  for  its  constitution  and  order,  hating 
the  new  opinions  that  are  rife,  indignant  at  the  attacks 
that  are  being  made  on  all  sides  against  the  vices  of  its 
priesthood,  denouncing  upon  every  occasion  the  use  of 
the  Scriptures  by  the  people,  holding  to  the  strictest 
regimen  of  penance  and  confession.  He  is  a  recognized 
power  among  the  partisans  of  the  Church ;  a  hot  papist ; 
in  fact,  so  prominent  for  his  high  and  zealous  ecclesi- 
asticism,  that  the  university  has  made  him  the  official 
cross-bearer,  to  carry  the  great  silver  cross  of  the  uni- 
versity in  its  parades  and  processions ;  and  when  he 
comes  to  take  his  degree  as  Bachelor  in  Divinity,  he 
makes  a  violent  oration  against  Philip  Melancthon. 
Bilney  admires  the  spirit  of  the  man,  and  withal  dis- 
covers from  certain  passages  of  his  oration  that  he  is 
ill  at  ease,  and  needs  to  know  what  he  himself  has  ex- 
perienced. He  seeks  him  out,  goes  to  his  study,  begs 
him  to  hear  his  confession.  They  are  both  children  of 
the  one  Church,  and  Bilney  makes  his  confession.  He 
tells  the  touching  story  of  his  own  spiritual  conflict. 
He  has  done  penance.  He  has  paid  for  masses  and 
absolutions.  He  has  diligently  applied  himself  to  all 
the  soul  remedies  which  the  young  divine  had  recom- 
mended in  his  oration.  He  has  fasted  and  wept  and 
prayed,  till  he  was  more  dead  than  alive.  At  last  he 
has  read  that  book  which  the  Church  has  forbidden  to 
be  used  by  the  people,  and  found  peace  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  God's  free  love  in  the  gift  of  his  Son.  And 
now,  he  asks,  must  I  abandon  my  peace,  and  go  back  to 
my  penance  and  despair  ?  The  frank  and  simple  story 
of  Bilney 's  spiritual  conflicts  revealed  to  the  young 
priest,  as  he  afterwards  said,  more  of  himself  than  he 


108  LATIMER. 

ever  knew  before.  It  was  a  revelation  to  him,  of  a 
truth  and  a  life  of  which  he  had  been  profoundly  igno- 
rant ;  of  a  peace  and  a  health  for  which  he  too  had 
longed,  but  which  he  had  never  found.  He  sought 
and  found  it  now.  The  young  priest  was  Hugh  Lat- 
imer.  I  have  thus  far  given  you  his  spiritual  gene- 
alogy :  Savonarola  converted  John  Colet,  John  Colet 
converted  the  great  Erasmus,  Erasmus  converted 
Thomas  Bilney,  and  Thomas  Bilney  converted  Hugh 
Latimer.1 

The  little  that  can  be  said  of  Latimer's  early  years 
is  to  be  gathered  mainly  from  his  own  discourses  in 
later  life.  The  date  of  his  birth  is  uncertain,  but  it 
could  not  have  been  far  from  the  year  1484,  which 
marks  the  close  of  a  century  from  the  death  of  Wiclif. 
His  father  was  a  well-to-do  yeoman  of  Leicestershire, 
of  whom  all  that  we  know  Latimer  himself  has  told 
us,  in  a  sermon  preached  before  the  young  king, 
Edward  VI.  "  My  father  had  a  farm  of  three  or  four 
pounds  by  year  at  the  uttermost;  and  hereupon  he 
tilled  so  much  as  kept  half  a  dozen  men.  He  had 
walk  for  a  hundred  sheep,  and  my  mother  milked 
thirty  kine.  He  was  able,  and  did  find  the  king  a 
harness,  with  himself  and  his  horse.  I  can  remember 
that  I  buckled  his  harness  when  he  went  unto  Black- 
heath  field.  He  kept  me  to  school,  or  else  I  had  not 
been  able  to  have  preached  before  the  king's  majesty 
now.  He  married  my  sisters  with  five  pound  or 
twenty  nobles  apiece  ;  so  that  he  brought  them  up  in 

1  Perhaps  the  word  "  converted  "  should  not  be  pressed  in  its 
conventional  sense  in  all  these  cases,  but  this  is  the  underground 
wire  through  which  the  impulse  from  Florence  was  conveyed  to 
the  universities  of  Cambridge  and  Oxford,  and  ultimately  to  the 
British  throne. 


LA  TIMER'S  FATHER.  109 

godliness  and  the  fear  of  God.  He  kept  hospitality 
for  his  poor  neighbors ;  and  some  alms  he  gave  to  the 
poor."  And  in  another  sermon  he  says  :  "  My  father 
was  as  diligent  to  teach  me  to  shoot  as  to  learn  me 
any  other  thing,  and  so  I  think  other  men  did  their 
children :  he  taught  me  how  to  draw,  how  to  lay  my 
body  in  my  bow,  and  not  to  draw  with  strength  of 
arms  as  other  nations  do,  but  with  strength  of  the 
body.  I  had  my  bows  bought  me  according  to  my 
age  and  strength :  as  I  increased  in  them  so  my  bows 
were  made  bigger  and  bigger ;  for  men  shall  never 
shoot  well  except  they  be  brought  up  in  it ;  it  is 
a  goodly  art,  a  wholesome  kind  of  exercise,  and  much 
commended  in  physic." 

It  is  only  a  glimpse  that  we  get  into  that  old  Eng- 
lish country  home  of  four  hundred  years  ago,  but  it  is 
a  glimpse  that  reveals  a  good  deal.  There  is  piety 
towards  God,  sound  parental  training,  loyalty  to  king 
and  country,  compassion  towards  the  poor,  thrift  and 
honesty,  a  care  for  physical  health,  a  liking  for 
domestic  toil  and  rural  sports,  a  fine,  breezy,  whole- 
some atmosphere  about  the  whole  picture,  something 
which  makes  us  glad  and  thankful  while  we  read  it  in 
Latimer's  homely  words,  that  we  ourselves  have  sprung 
from  just  such  cradles  as  this  old  Leicestershire  farm- 
house. And  as  one  reads  the  sermons  of  the  reform- 
er's later  years,  in  the  light  of  these  few  words  of 
description,  in  which,  as  he  himself  says,  he  always 
calls  a  spade  a  spade,  we  feel  the  same  wholesome 
farm-house  atmosphere  in  his  rough  but  manly  speech, 
his  shrewdness  of  observation,  his  homely  figures,  his 
utter  freedom  from  cant  on  one  side  and  from  scholas- 
ticism on  the  other,  and  his  invariable  directness  in 
dealing  with  whatever  matter  he  has  in  hand. 


110  LA  TIMER. 

He  passed  to  the  University  of  Cambridge  in  1506, 
and  graduated  successively  Bachelor  of  Arts,  Master 
of  Arts,  and  Bachelor  of  Divinity.  It, was  a  singular 
recognition  of  these  peculiar  powers,  by  virtue  of  which 
he  was  afterwards  to  wield  so  great  an  influence,  that 
while  he  was  yet  an  undergraduate  in  Divinity  he  was 
appointed  one  of  twelve  preachers,  licensed,  by  a 
peculiar  privilege  of  the  University  of  Cambridge,  to 
officiate  in  any  part  of  England.  Those  were  stirring 
times,  in  the  world  of  thought  and  letters,  during 
which  Latimer  was  in  residence  at  Cambridge,  but 
the  stir  seems  hardly  to  have  affected  him  till  the  very 
close  of  his  university  career.  Just  as  one  would  ex- 
pect from  what  he  himself  has  disclosed  of  his  parent- 
age and  early  years  at  home,  Latimer  is  the  typical 
Englishman  ;  averse  to  change,  impatient  of  novelties, 
loving  to  do  everything  just  as  it  has  been  done  from 
time  immemorial.  Had  the  Sharp's  rifle  been  in- 
vented in  that  day,  he  would  still  have  cleaved  to  the 
good  old  yewen-bow  which  his  father  taught  him  how 
to  handle.  Erasmus  was  then  in  Cambridge  awaken- 
ing the  greatest  enthusiasm  in  his  teaching  of  Greek  ; 
but  the  good  old  Anglo-Saxon  and  a  little  Latin  were 
enough  for  Latimer.  No  good  was  to  come  out  of 
these  new-fangled  notions.  Greek  was  the  language 
of  heresy.  George  Stafford  was  reading  divinity 
lectures  and  expounding  the  Old  Testament  and  the 
New.  But  the  good  old  school-doctors,  St.  Anselm 
and  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  pure  fountains  of  orthodoxy, 
honored  by  the  Church  for  centuries,  had  long  ago 
told,  if  not  all  that  could  be  learned  from  the  Scrip- 
tures, at  least  all  that  any  one  ought  to  want  to  know. 
He  was  an  obstructive  of  the  worst  type.  No  new 
departure  for  him !  What  a  valuable  man  he  would 


CONSERVATISM.  Ill 

have  been  to  the  hyper-Calvinists  of  to-day,  if  his 
birth  could  only  have  been  delayed  for  four  hundred 
years  !  And  one  other  "  if,"  —  if  he  could  not  have 
been  softened  and  converted.  But  even  he  was 
convertible  when  the  warm  tides  of  Bilney's  piety 
poured  themselves  around  his  stubborn  soul.  He  was 
thoroughly  honest,  as  obstructives  generally  are.  He 
had  implicit  confidence  in  the  Church  as  already  con- 
stituted. And  believing  as  he  did,  that  most  perilous 
heresy  was  spreading  among  the  students,  he  was 
eager,  even  to  indignation,  against  the  promoters  of 
the  new  doctrines.  "  Perceiving  the  youth  of  the 
university  inclined  to  the  reading  of  the  Scriptures, 
and  leaving  off  the  school-doctors,  he  came  amongst 
the  youth,  gathered  together  of  daily  custom  to  their 
disputations ;  and  then  most  eloquently  made  to  them 
an  oration,  dissuading  them  from  this  new-fangled 
kind  of  study  of  the  Scriptures,  and  vehemently  per- 
suaded them  to  the  study  of  the  school-authors."  L 

I  have  told  you  of  his  conversion  at  the  hands 
of  Thomas  Bilney.  And  when  that  took  place,  and 
the  simplicity  of  the  gospel  once  possessed  him,  the 
same  temper  which  made  him  so  enthusiastic  a  sup- 
porter of  the  rights  and  dogmas  of  the  Church  made 
him  an  equally  zealous  advocate  of  religious  and  eccle- 
siastical reform.  From  the  first  to  the  last,  however, 
his  preaching  was  exceedingly  simple  and  practical, 
and  comparatively  undoctrinal.  He  spoke  ever  of  the 
real  interests  and  duties  of  the  Christian  life.  He 
addressed  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  men,  and  so 
could  be  understood  of  all,  whether  of  great  intellect 
or  little.  He  had  adopted  no  new  creed,  he  had 
simply  got  a  new  vision  of  Christ.  He  wished  for  no 
1  Latimer's  Remains,  quoted  by  Demaus,  p.  30. 


112  LA  TIMER. 

new  form  of  worship,  he  would  have  men  to  be  simply 
true  and  honest  in  the  forms  they  already  had.  He 
was  still  a  priest  in  the  Church  in  which  he  had  been 
baptized  and  ordained,  and  expected  to  live  and  die  in 
its  communion.  But  he  had  discovered  that  fastings 
and  penance  and  supplication  of  saints  did  not  give 
peace  to  the  soul ;  that  peace  had  been  already  pro- 
cured by  Christ,  and  full  atonement  made  by  Him ; 
that  all  the  works  of  man's  invention,  —  going  on  pil- 
grimages, offering  candles  to  the  shrines  of  saints, 
creeping  to  a  cross,  —  were  not  the  good  works  of 
a  Christian  life ;  that  they  procured  nothing  and  evi- 
denced nothing  ;  but  that  a  life  of  holiness,  in  obe- 
dience to  God,  visiting  the  sick,  relieving  the  poor, 
teaching  the  ignorant  for  the  love  of  Christ,  and  leading 
men  to  repentance,  was  the  true  life  for  a  Christian  to 
lead.  All  this  he  now  began  to  preach,  mightily  and 
everywhere,  not  only  within  the  precincts  of  the  uni- 
versity, one  of  whose  preachers  he  was,  but  all  about 
the  country.  He  would  even  go  into  lazar-houses  and 
hospitals  to  preach  Christ,  to  jails  and  prisons,  and 
other  places  where  outcasts  were  gathered  for  whom 
no  man  cared.  And  his  homely  sense,  and  bright 
humor,  and  overflowing  goodness,  and  conscientious 
appeals  made  him  welcome  alike  in  the  pest-house  and 
in  the  University  Church  of  St.  Mary's.  Such  a  man 
must  soon  emerge  in  an  horizon  of  broader  observa- 
tion. He  must  step  into  the  field  of  history. 

The  Bishop  of  Ely  hears  of  the  stir  at  Cambridge 
caused  by  the  new  learning  of  the  schools  and  the  new 
preaching  in  the  pulpits,  and  thinks  it  time  to  look 
after  that  quarter  of  his  diocese.  Without  announce- 
ment, he  drops  into  St.  Mary's  one  day  while  Latimer 
is  preaching,  to  judge  for  himself  whether  certain 


CARDINAL  WOLSETS  PROTECTION.       113 

charges  are  'true.  The  preacher  calmly  waits  till  the 
bishop  and  his  attendants  are  seated,  and  then,  re- 
marking that  a  new  audience,  especially  of  such  a  rank, 
deserves  a  new  theme,  he  gives  out  a  new  text :  "  Christ 
being  come,  an  High  Priest  of  good  things  to  come," 
etc.  (Heb.  ix.  11),  and  draws  out  the  theme,  "  Jesus 
Christ  the  true  pattern  of  a  Christian  bishop."  In 
showing  what  a  true  bishop  is,  he  inevitably  showed 
what  the  present  bishop  was  not.  The  contrast  was 
painful,  no  doubt.  At  any  rate,  the  bishop  forbade 
him  to  preach  any  more  in  any  of  the  churches  of 
Cambridge.  There  was  one  place,  however,  just  at 
hand  which  was  exempt  from  the  bishop's  jurisdiction, 
the  priory  church  of  the  Augustines.  And  the  prior, 
being  in  sympathy  with  Latimer,  gave  him  the  free 
use  of  his  pulpit,  so  that  there  was  no  cessation  of  his 
preaching  or  his  influence.  But  the  man  must  be 
stopped,  if  possible,  and  so  an  appeal  is  made  to  the 
great  Cardinal  Wolsey,  who  cites  Latimer  to  appear 
before  him  for  examination.  And  now  his  old  admi- 
ration for  the  schoolmen  stands  him  in  good  stead. 
The  cardinal  finds  him  thoroughly  posted  in  Duns  and 
Aquinas  ;  knows  far  more  about  them,  it  appears,  than 
his  accusers.  Such  a  man  surely  is  not  very  deeply 
infected  with  the  new  heresies.  He  is  a  thorough 
scholastic,  and  fairly  captures  the  great  cardinal. 
"  But  tell  me,  Master  Latimer,  why  the  Bishop  of  Ely 
misliketh  thy  proceedings  ;  tell  me  the  truth."  Lati- 
mer then,  in  his  honest,  straightforward  way,  tells 
how  he  preached  before  him  on  Christ  as  the  pattern 
of  a  Christian  bishop,  and  gives  the  text  and  the  sub- 
stance of  the  sermon.  "  And  did  you  preach  before 
him  no  other  doctrine  than  this  ?  "  "  No,  surely," 
said  Latimer.  Then  said  the  cardinal,  "  If  the  Bishop 
8 


114  LA  TIMER. 

of  Ely  cannot  abide  such  doctrine,  you  shall  have  my 
license,  and  shall  preach  it  unto  his  beard,  let  him  say 
what  he  will."  And  so  Latimer  was  discharged,  with 
the  cardinal's  license  henceforth  to  preach  not  only  in 
Cambridge,  but  through  all  England.  It  makes  us 
think  more  kindly  of  the  great  archbishop,  if  possible, 
than  even  Shakespeare's  touching  picture  of  his  hu- 
miliation, to  know  that  one  of  his  later  official  acts 
was  thus  put  forth  in  defense  of  a  brother  English- 
man who  had  sprung  from  a  similar  rank  to  that  of 
his  own  origin,  and  who  had  been  unjustly  accused  in 
the  honest  performance  of  his  Christian  duty. 

From  this  time  Latimer  stands  out  as  a  prominent 
figure  in  English  history,  his  name  associated  with 
several  others  of  whom  we  always  think  in  connection 
with  him,  notably  those  of  Thomas  Cranmer  and  Nic- 
olas Ridley.  From  these  men,  however,  he  differed 
as  much  in  the  aspects  of  his  work  as  in  the  elements 
of  his  personal  character.  Ridley,  who  was  afterwards 
burned  with  him,  was  more  of  a  scholar,  and  did  his 
work  mainly  among  scholars.  Cranmer,  though  he 
became  the  highest  prelate  in  England,  was  more 
noted  for  the  political  aspect  of  his  career.  Latimer, 
in  his  person  and  in  his  work,  furnished  a  connection 
between  the  common  people  and  the  higher  classes. 
In  him  the  two  streams  of  reformation,  that  among 
the  commonalty  and  that  in  the  court,  became  conflu- 
ent. He  blended  the  two  movements  and  made  them 
one.  He  took  up  the  Wiclifian  influence  and  welded 
it  with  the  work  of  Henry  VIII.  as  perhaps  no  other 
person  could  have  done.  Like  Savonarola,  he  laid  his 
hand  upon  the  extremes  of  society  and  brought  the 
two  together,  and  that  too,  like  the  Florentine,  mainly 
by  the  force  of  his  preaching.  He  lived  in  three 


THE  DIVORCE   OF  KATHERINE.  115 

marked  reigns.  That  we  may  more  succinctly  gather 
up  his  work,  we  shall  look  at  him  in  his  relations  to 
the  King  Henry  VIII.,  as  preacher  to  Edward  VI., 
and  as  the  victim  of  Bloody  Mary. 

The  great  cardinal  (Wolsey)  did  not  live  long 
enough  to  know  fully  what  would  be  the  results  of  that 
protection  which  he  had  so  generously  extended  to 
Latimer.  We  need  not  derogate  from  that  generosity 
by  supposing  what  his  conduct  would  have  been  had 
he  lived  and  continued  in  power.  Let  us  give  him 
full  credit  for  what  he  did  with  good  intent.  Just 
after  Wolsey's  fall,  in  1529,  Henry  VIII.,  intent  upon 
his  divorce  from  Queen  Katherine,  called  upon  the 
universities  of  England  and  the  continent  to  decide 
the  question  whether  or  no  marriage  with  a  deceased 
brother's  wife  were  contrary  to  the  law  of  God  and  of 
nature,  and  Latimer  was  one  of  the  twelve  men  ap- 
pointed by  his  own  university  of  Cambridge  to  voice 
its  opinion.  That  decision  was  given  early  in  the  fol- 
lowing spring,  and  was  favorable  to  the  wishes  of  the 
king.  We  cannot  doubt  that,  whatever  motives  swayed 
that  commission  on  one  side  and  on  the  other,  Latimer 
was  perfectly  honest  in  his  opinion  that  the  king's 
marriage  had  been  immoral  and  illegal.  We  cannot 
believe  that  he  was  looking  to  any  consequences  ul- 
terior to  an  impartial  decision  of  the  question  upon 
grounds  of  morality  and  religion  alone.  He  would 
have  decided  in  the  same  way  had  it  been  proposed  to 
him  by  the  humblest  subject  of  the  realm.  Nor  had 
he  any  reason  to  suppose  that  the  king  would  know 
his  personal  sentiment  in  a  commission  whose  opinions 
would  undoubtedly  be  divided.  But  there  was  a  royal 
emissary  in  Cambridge  while  the  debate  was  going  on, 
who  discovered  Latimer's  position  and  reported  it  to 


116  LA  TIMER. 

the  king.  And  the  king,  knowing  his  great  repute  as 
a  preacher,  and  curious  to  hear  the  man  whose  elo- 
quence had  made  such  a  sensation  in  Cambridge,  forth- 
with summoned  him  to  preach  before  the  court  the 
next  Sunday.  To  any  ordinary  man  such  a  summons 
would  be  a  great  event.  Indeed,  extraordinary  ambi- 
tion might  regard  it  as  the  culmination  of  life's  hon- 
ors. But  this  son  of  a  yeoman,  this  simple-hearted, 
plain-spoken  man  of  the  common  people,  with  his  un- 
kempt language  and  farmer-like  ways,  takes  his  first 
appearance  at  court  as  a  part  of  the  divine  ordering 
of  life,  apparently  going  to  Windsor  as  he  would  go 
to  some  little  chapel  in  the  outskirts  of  Cambridge, 
and  with  no  different  motive,  to  preach  his  new-found 
gospel.  How  utterly  ingenuous  and  unselfish  he  is  in 
the  whole  matter  appears  at  once.  When  the  king 
comes  and  speaks  to  him  after  the  sermon,  he  falls  on 
his  knees  and  begs  that  his  majesty  will  pardon  a  poor 
woman  who  is  lying  under  sentence  of  death  in  Cam- 
bridge jail.  He  and  Bilney  have  visited  her,  and 
they  are  persuaded  of  her  innocence.  And  Latimer 
goes  back  to  Cambridge  elated  and  thankful,  not  that 
he  has  preached  before  the  court,  and  his  majesty  was 
pleased  to  commend  his  discourse,  but  that  he  carries 
the  poor  ignorant  woman's  pardon  safe  in  his  pocket. 
Almost  immediately  upon  his  return  to  Cambridge, 
the  king  summons  another  commission  ;  this  time  to 
consult  concerning  the  prohibition  of  religious  books 
which  are  circulating  through  the  kingdom,  to  exam- 
ine their  contents  and  decide  what  are  erroneous  and 
seditious,  and  what  are  good  and  fruitful.  The  action 
is  aimed  more  immediately  at  the  circulation  of  the 
Scriptures  in  English.  Again  Latimer  is  appointed 
upon  this  commission.  But  the  majority  are  opposed 


LETTER    TO  HENRY. 

to  him,  and  they  vote  for  a  wholesale  and  sweeping 
condemnation,  and  a  royal  proclamation  immediately 
follows  confirming  their  action.  But  Latimer  is  not 
the  man  to  be  content  with  a.  simple  protest  before 
his  fellows.  He  sits  down,  and  writes  a  letter  to  the 
king  himself  in  favor  of  the  free  circulation  of  the 
Scriptures  in  the  English  tongue.  Whether  we  con- 
sider the  man  who  wrote  it,  the  age  in  which  it  was 
written,  the  haughty  and  imperious  monarch  to  whom 
it  was  addressed,  or  its  style  and  contents,  there  is 
nothing  grander  in  the  whole  realm  of  literature. 
These  are  its  closing  words:  "Wherefore,  gracious 
king,  remember  yourself :  have  pity  upon  your  soul : 
and  think  that  the  day  is  even  at  hand  when  you  shall 
give  an  account  of  your  office,  and  of  the  blood  that 
hath  been  shed  by  your  sword.  In  the  which  day  that 
your  grace  may  stand  steadfastly,  and  not  be  ashamed, 
but  be  clear  and  ready  in  your  reckoning,  and  to  have 
(as  they  say)  your  quietus  est  sealed  with  the  blood 
of  our  Saviour  Christ,  which  only  serveth  at  that  day, 
is  my  daily  prayer  to  Him  that  suffered  death  for  our 
sins,  which  also  prayeth  to  his  Father  for  grace  to  us 
continually,  to  whom  be  all  honor  and  praise  forever  I 
Amen  !  The  Spirit  of  God  preserve  your  grace  I  " 

This  was  a  man  to  stand  before  kings ! 

The  immediate  object  of  the  letter  was  not  gained. 
But  it  speaks  a  world  for  the  heroism  and  grandeur 
of  Latimer's  character,  and  much  also  for  Henry's 
magnanimity,  that  he  honored  the  man  who  dared  to 
write  it,  by  making  him  almost  immediately  one  of  the 
royal  chaplains. 

He  came  to  reside  at  court.  Anne  Boleyn  was 
queen  now,  and  he  fell  into  her  good  graces,  which 
fact  served  him  well  while  her  star  was  in  the  ascend- 


118  LATIMER. 

ant.  But  life  here  was  not  to  his  liking,  with  his  sim- 
ple tastes  and  homely  mode  of  life,  and  the  king  soon 
appointed  him  rector  of  the  country  parish  of  King- 
ton,  in  Wiltshire.  And  here  again  he  was  happy, 
going  about  among  the  sick  and  poor,  talking  with 
farmers  and  ploughmen,  doing  good  in  all  sorts  of 
ways,  —  a  good  pastor  to  a  loving  people,  whose  de- 
scendants, to  this  day,  are  proud  of  the  memory  of  good 
Master  Latimer.  But  how  impossible  to  bottle  up 
such  a  man  in  an  obscure  country  parish !  He  must 
preach  the  blessed  gospel ;  and  so,  taking  advantage 
of  his  old  Cambridge  license  to  preach  anywhere  in 
England,  he  not  only  fills  his  own  pulpit,  but  goes  out 
on  every  side,  to  Bristol,  to  London,  to  Kent.  And 
so  inevitably  he  comes  into  repeated  conflict  with  the 
old  papistical  spirit.  He  exposes  the  frauds  of  relics 
and  images.  He  enlightens  the  poor  people  as  to  the 
mummeries  and  shams  by  which  their  souls  are  imposed 
upon,  and  their  pockets  robbed  of  their  wages  ;  he 
turns  them  away  from  saints  to  the  Saviour.  We  may 
say  that  he  might  better  have  confined  himself  to  the 
work  of  his  parish.  But  he  felt  that  England  was  his 
parish,  and  the  Word  of  God  was  as  fire  shut  up  in 
his  bones.  Preaching  in  London,  he  falls  under  the 
displeasure  of  the  bishop  of  that  diocese,  who  is  now 
engaged  with  Sir  Thomas  More  in  the  violent  suppres- 
sion of  heresy,  who  summons  him  to  answer  for  preach- 
ing in  his  territory  without  express  permission.  This 
leads  to  long  persecution,  and  finally  to  his  imprison- 
ment, and  even  to  his  excommunication.  His  appeal 
to  the  king  at  length  procures  his  release. 

Cromwell  soon  after  this  became  chancellor  in  the 
place  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  and  Cranmer  was  made 
about  the  same  time  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  Both 


MADE  BISHOP   OF  WORCESTER.  119 

knew  and  appreciated  Latimer,  and  through  their 
friendship,  aided  perhaps  by  the  influence  of  Anne 
Boleyn,  Latimer  is  suddenly  lifted  out  of  the  troubles 
in  which  he  was  involved,  by  being  made  Bishop  of 
Worcester.  One  would  hardly  think  it  consonant 
with  the  tastes  and  habits  of  the  man.  But  it  raised 
him  above  the  reach  of  petty  persecution  for  the  time, 
and  enlarged  in  some  ways  the  scope  of  his  influence. 
His  work  as  bishop  he  made  simply  that  of  pastor  in 
a  larger  parish.  Throughout  that  diocese,  at  least,  he 
could  teach  the  pure  gospel  unhindered,  and  see  that 
his  rectors  and  curates  preached  it.  He  makes  his 
visitations  to  his  churches  and  clergy  truly  pastoral. 
He  brings  to  the  administration  of  his  diocese  his  old 
yeoman-like  shrewdness  and  common  sense.  He  tells 
his  clergy  that  they  must  reside  on  their  livings  ;  he 
will  have  them  spend  their  time  in  reading  the  Scrip- 
tures and  setting  a  good  example.  The  people  must 
not  be  undertaking  pilgrimages  ;  they  will  please  God 
better  by  the  true  exercise  of  their  bodily  labor,  pro- 
viding for  their  families ;  it  will  be  more  profitable  for 
their  soul's  health  to  bestow  upon  the  poor  what  they 
are  wont  to  bestow  on  images.  Fathers  and  masters 
must  teach  their  children  and  servants  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  the  Creed,  and  the  Ten  Commandments  in 
the  mother  tongue,  and  curates  must  repeat  them  in 
their  sermons  till  all  are  familiar  with  them.  More- 
over all  are  to  be  brought  up  to  work,  that  begging 
may  not  be  the  scandal  of  the  nation.  Such  was  the 
good  bishop's  reformatory  work. 

And  he  meant  that  his  true  religion  and  Anglo- 
Saxon  sense  should  strike  up  and  down  through  all 
those  grades  of  society  which  it  was  a  bishop's  privi- 
lege to  reach.  The  king  should  have  no  more  imnm- 


120  LA  TIMER. 

nity  than  the  ploughboy.  And  so  one  New  Year's 
Day,  when  the  bishops  and  nobles  were  accustomed  to 
send  gifts  to  the  king,  jewels  and  presents  of  gold  and 
silver,  good  Latimer  sends  up  his  gift  among  them, 
or  rather  himself  puts  it  into  the  king's  own  hand,  a 
New  Testament  with  the  leaf  turned  down  to  the  text, 
"Whoremongers  and  adulterers  God  will  judge."  A 
wonder  of  wonders  that  bluff  and  fiery  King  Hal  did 
not  "  off  with  his  head." 

He  is  the  same  faithful,  outspoken,  honest  friend  to 
God,  and  purity,  and  justice,  and  truth,  as  a  bishop, 
that  he  was  as  a  village  pastor.  When  he  takes  his 
seat  in  Parliament  for  the  first  time  as  a  peer  of  the 
realm,  and  the  question  is  up  on  the  disestablishment 
of  the  monasteries,  he  opposes  with  all  his  might  their 
perversion  to  secular  uses.  Could  Latimer  have  had 
his  way  in  the  sixteenth  century,  England  would  not 
now  have  been  cursed  so  heavily  as  she  is,  by  the  cries 
of  the  poor  and  the  clamors  of  the  communist.  Many 
a  lordly  manor  and  many  a  noble  hall,  which  has  come 
down  to  its  present  owners,  not  as  the  righteous  and 
legitimate  reward  of  industry  and  honest  toil,  but  as 
the  gift  of  favoritism  to  some  worthless  ancestor, 
would  now  be  yielding  its  revenues  to  widespread  and 
popular  needs.  He  remonstrates  against  religious 
houses  which  had  been  endowed  for  the  relief  of  the 
poor,  being  turned  into  king's  stables.  He  entreats 
Cromwell  to  spare  the  abbey  of  Great  Malvern,  "  not 
for  monkery,  God  forbid,  but  to  maintain  preaching, 
teaching,  study,  with  praying  and  good  works  and  true 
hospitality." 

On  June  9,  1536,  is  held  the  first  Protestant  Con- 
vocation of  the  Church  of  England,  and  Latimer  is 
appointed  to  preach  the  opening  sermon.  There  he  is 


SERMON  BEFORE  CONVOCATION.          121 

the  same  protesting  spirit  against  clerical  abuse.  He 
is  a  bishop  now,  and  can  speak  untrammeled.  Around 
him  are  men  who  had  sought  to  silence  him,  who  had 
sought  his  life.  He  takes  for  his  text  the  Parable  of 
the  Unjust  Steward.  Savonarola  might  have  been 
more  fiery,  he  could  not  have  been  more  incisive  or 
more  practical ;  humor,  scorn,  parable,  keen  wit,  in- 
dignation, and  yet  abounding  kindness  of  heart  which 
Latimer  never  forgot,  sent  that  sermon  home  to  the 
hearts  and  consciences  of  the  bishops,  and  to  the  heart 
of  all  England.  It  was  fruitful  of  beneficent  changes, 
which  I  cannot  dwell  upon. 

Latimer's  work  as  bishop,  however,  was  now  about 
finished.  The  famous  act  of  the  Six  Articles  con- 
cerning the  real  presence,  vows  of  chastity,  communion 
in  both  kinds,  private  masses,  celibacy  of  the  clergy, 
and  auricular  confession,  was  brought  forward  in  Par- 
liament by  the  popish  party,  was  passed,  and  enforced 
by  a  bill  of  penalties  of  the  most  sanguinary  character. 
Upon  which  Latimer  resigned  his  episcopate.  He 
came  home  from  the  House  of  Parliament,  and  threw 
off  his  episcopal  robes,  saying,  as  he  did  so,  that  he 
thought  he  was  lighter  than  he  had  ever  found  himself 
before.  He  was  now  getting  old  and  weary.  His 
spirit  was  neither  crushed  nor  quenched,  but  he  longed 
for  rest.  But  he  was  not  suffered  to  remain  in  quiet. 
He  was  too  dangerous  a  spirit  to  be  allowed  his  free- 
dom. He  was  no  longer  the  Lord  Bishop  of  Worces- 
ter, but  plain  Hugh  Latimer  again.  As  such  he  was 
amenable  to  episcopal  authority  upon  the  slightest  pre- 
tense. He  was  seized  and  imprisoned  upon  the  accu- 
sation that  he  had  spoken  against  the  Six  Articles, 
and  was  kept  a  prisoner  until  the  death  of  Henry  in 
1547. 


122  LAT1MER. 

Happy  days  came  again  for  the  old  man  with  the 
accession  of  Edward  VI.,  the  godly  boy,  the  Josiah  of 
the  English  throne.  It  is  useless  to  speculate  upon 
what  Edward  might  have  been  had  his  life  been  pro- 
longed to  manhood.  Never  was  son  while  a  boy  more 
unlike  his  father.  By  the  general  pardon,  proclaimed 
as  usual  upon  the  day  of  the  king's  coronation,  Lati- 
mer  was  set  free,  and  at  once  taken  into  high  favor. 
He  was  even  urged  to  resume  his  bishopric.  But  he 
did  not  want  again  to  be  immersed  in  public  affairs. 
He  was  old  and  weary.  He  was  content,  as  he  hu- 
morously expressed  it,  to  be  a  quondam,  thanking 
God  that  he  had  come  to  his  quondamship  by  honest 
means.  But  he  did  not  mean  to  rust  out.  He  could 
and  would  preach.  And  men  would  hear  him.  The 
great  English  heart  had  a  warm  place  for  old  Master 
Latimer.  He  never  opened  his  mouth  but  men  of 
every  rank  crowded  about  to  listen.  When  he  preached, 
as  he  often  did,  before  the  boy-king,  it  was  necessary 
to  erect  a  pulpit  in  the  king's  garden,  so  that  the 
multitudes  could  be  accommodated.  He  preached 
once  in  St.  Margaret's,  Westminster,  and  all  the  pews 
were  broken  in  pieces,  so  great  was  the  throng.  His 
good  friend,  Archbishop  Cranmer,  would  have  him 
come  and  live  with  him  at  Lambeth.  And  the  two 
old  men,  who  had  only  one  great  cause  at  heart,  read 
and  studied  and  wrote  together,  and  were  happy. 
Some  of  the  beautiful  homilies  of  the  Church  of 
England  are  the  fruit  of  those  Indian  summer  days. 
It  is  a  fine  picture  that  history  gives  of  old  white- 
headed  Latimer  and  grave  and  gentle  Cranmer 
dwelling  together  in  the  evening  of  life,  among  the 
gray  towers  of  Lambeth  palace,  worshiping  together 
in  its  lovely  chapel,  reading  in  its  library,  walking  in 


ACCESSION  OF  MARY.  123 

its  gardens,  praying  together  for  their  young  king, 
and  for  the  good  work  which  is  going  on  in  their 
beloved  Church  of  England.  It  is  a  gracious  touch 
which  Latimer  himself  adds  to  the  picture,  in  one  of 
his  quaint  sermons.  "  I  am  no  sooner  in  the  garden," 
says  he,  "  and  have  read  awhile  but  by  and  by  com- 
eth  there  some  one  or  other  knocking  at  the  gate. 
Anon  cometh  my  man,  and  saith,  fc  Sir,  there  is  one  at 
the  gate  that  would  speak  with  you.'  When  I  come 
there,  then  is  it  some  one  or  other  poor  body  that 
desireth  me  that  I  will  speak  that  his  matter  may 
be  heard."  Then  turning  to  the  Lord  Protector,1 
who  was  present,  he  entreated  him,  for  the  love  of 
God,  to  see  justice  promptly  administered,  and  not 
provoke  divine  vengeance  by  neglecting  the  suits  of 
the  poor. 

Alas  !  that  such-  lovely  autumn  days  should  be  so 
soon  followed  by  the  winter  and  the  storm. 

With  the  early  death  of  Edward,  and  the  accession 
of  Mary,  all  this  was  changed.  The  reactionary  party 
came  into  power.  Mary,  indignant  at  Cranmer's  posi- 
tion in  relation  to  the  matter  of  the  succession,  when 
Edward  died,  visited  her  wrath  without  measure  upon 
him,  and  all  who  had  concurred  with  him.  Latimer 
had  left  Lambeth  and  retired  into  the  country.  But 
he  was  speedily  summoned  to  London  and  immured 
in  the  Tower.  He  went  willingly  and  joyfully ;  pass- 
ing through  Smithfield  he  said,  "This  place  hath  a 
great  while  longed  for  me."  After  lying  all  winter  in 
the  Tower  without  any  fire,  about  even  this  he  could 
be  humorous,  telling  his  persecutors  that  the  cold 
would  cheat  the  fire,  if  they  did  not  look  better  after 
him.  He  was  carried  to  Oxford,  along  with  Cranmer 
1  Somerset. 


124  LA  TIMER. 

and  Ridley,  to  dispute  with  certain  commissioners  upon 
the  doctrine  of  the  mass.  The  whole  affair  was  a 
farce,  enacted  with  the  purpose  of  procuring  a  pretext 
for  their  condemnation.  Latimer  declines  to  dispute. 
He  is  an  old  man,  and  not  so  quick  at  his  Latin  as  he 
once  was.  He  has  been  all  winter  in  prison  without 
any  books.  He  can  tell  them  simply  what  he  believes, 
but  he  does  not  believe  in  their  doctrine  of  the  mass. 
For  more  than  a  year  the  farce  is  unaccountably  pro- 
longed. The  old  man  is  worn  out  with  his  long  im- 
prisonment. "You  look  for  learning  at  my  hand, 
which  have  gone  so  long  to  the  school  of  oblivion, 
making  the  bare  walls  my  library :  keeping  me  so  long 
in  prison  without  book  or  pen  or  ink ;  and  now  you  let 
me  loose  to  come  and  answer  to  articles.  You  deal 
with  me  as  though  two  were  appointed  to  fight  for 
life  and  death,  and  over  night  one,  through  friends  and 
favor,  is  cherished  and  hath  good  counsel  how  to 
encounter  his  enemy ;  the  other,  for  envy  or  lack  of 
friends,  all  the  whole  night  is  set  in  the  stocks.  In 
the  morning,  when  they  shall  meet,  the  one  is  in 
strength  and  lively,  the  other  is  stark  of  his  limbs 
and  almost  dead  for  feebleness.  Think  you  that  to 
run  through  this  man  with  a  spear  is  not  a  goodly 
victory  ?  " 

The  end  is  what  was  intended.  Latimer  and  Ridley 
were  condemned,  and  led  forth  to  the  fire.  It  is 
superfluous  to  tell  how  joyfully  they  went,  as  if  to  a 
sweet  night's  rest  after  a  weary  day,  or  to  repeat  that 
beautiful  good-night  of  old  Master  Latimer }  "  Be  of 
good  cheer,  Master  Ridley,  and  play  the  man.  We 
shall,  this  day,  light  such  a  candle,  by  God's  grace,  in 
England  as  I  trust  shall  never  be  put  out." 

It   never   has   been;    from   that   candle   has   been 


LIGHT  AT  EVENING-TIME.  125 

lighted  the  cheer  and  brightness,  the  faith  and  purity, 
the  joy  and  hope  of  English-speaking  homes  in  all  the 

world. 

"  Bodies  fall  by  wild  sword-law ; 
But  who  would  force  the  soul  tilts  with  a  straw 
Against  a  champion  cased  in  adamant." 


VI 

CRANMER. 
A.  D.  1489-1556. 

VICTORY  sickens,  ignorant  where  to  rest! 

WORDSWORTH,  Eccl.  Sonnets,  part  II.,  xxxii. 


VI. 

CRANMER. 
A.  D.  1489-1556. 

THE  subject  of  the  present  chapter  affords  a  strong 
contrast,  at  many  points,  both  of  character  and  con- 
duct, to  the  career  which  has  just  engaged  our  at- 
tention. Latimer  was  admirable,  from  first  to  last, 
for  his  strong  simplicity.  Cranmer,  though  he  may 
not  be  righteously  charged  with  duplicity,  was  never- 
theless a  strange  paradox  of  strength  and  weakness. 
Latimer  never  feared  the  face  of  man.  Cranmer, 
though  the  word  coward  would  be  too  strong  to  apply 
to  him,  was  exceedingly  politic.  There  was  a  well- 
defined  line  of  personal  safety  which  he  was  careful 
to  never  overstep.  Familiar  as  he  was,  with  the  famil- 
iarity of  a  favorite,  he  would  never  have  ventured  to 
put  a  Testament,  with  that  significantly  folded  leaf, 
into  the  hand  of  Henry.  Bishop  Hooper  said  of  him, 
in  a  letter  to  the  Swiss  reformer,  Bullinger,  that  he 
was  "  too  fearful  about  what  might  come  to  him."  It 
is  quite  probable,  however,  that  a  man  of  less  caution 
would  have  accomplished  less  in  the  positions  which 
Cranmer  was  called  to  fill.  His  faults,  and  they  were 
grave  ones,  were  seldom  those  of  commission,  but 
rather  of  infirmity,  —  a  weak  yielding  to  others,  in- 
stead of  being  true  to  the  convictions  of  his  own  con- 
science. He  is,  historically,  the  most  prominent  figure 


130  CRANMER. 

among  the  divines  and  statesmen  of  the  English  Refor- 
mation.  He  did  more  than  any  other  man,  save  Henry 
himself,  to  give  shape  to  the  movement,  and  his  mark 
is  scored  more  deeply  than  that  of  any  other  man 
to-day  in  the  constitution  and  services  of  the  English 
Church.  That  that  Church,  in  its  separation  from 
the  Church  of  Rome,  did  not  become  simply  another 
papacy,  is  due  to  him.  Henry's  will  was  good  enough 
to  make  it  so,  and  the  strength  of  the  episcopate 
would  have  been  largely  with  him.  It  is  common 
enough  to  hear  the  statement  that  the  Reformation 
in  England  was  owing  to  the  king's  determination  to 
gratify,  at  all  hazards,  his  unlawful  passions.  But 
that  is  not  true.  The  desire  to  divorce  Katherine 
and  to  wed  Anne  furnished  only  an  occasion,  not  a 
cause.  After  this  object  had  been  accomplished, 
Henry  thought,  just  as  he  had  thought  before,  that 
the  papal  doctrines  were  in  nowise  at  fault.  He  had 
written  a  book  against  Luther  and  the  new  doctrines 
that  were  spreading  in  Germany,  —  a  book  full  of 
vigor  and  virulence.  And  he  hated  them  as  much  as 
ever.  Indeed,  he  was  at  heart  a  papist  to  the  end 
of  his  life.  The  only  difference  was  that  he  proposed 
to  be  pope  in  his  own  dominions.  Independence,  not 
reformation,  was  all  that  he  wanted.  And  it  is  owing, 
for  the  most  part,  to  Cranmer  that  the  Church  got 
anything  more.  He  was  the  fellow,  in  early  years,  of 
Latimer  and  Bilney,  and  loved  the  truth  that  they 
loved,  drew  it  pure  from  the  same  fountains,  and 
finally  became  as  it  were  the  official  head  of  the 
movement  which  they  conducted  on  humbler  levels. 
For  this  he  had,  as  he  needed,  more  finesse  than  they; 
he  lacked  somewhat  of  that  which  they  had  in  abun- 
dance, toughness  of  moral  fibre. 


EARLY   TRAINING.  131 

It  is  probable  that  Cranmer  was  born  to  a  some- 
what softer  cradle  than  Latimer.  He  belonged  to 
that  class  of  English  people  that  were  fond,  some  four 
hundred  years  ago,  of  boasting  that  their  ancestors 
"  came  over  with  the  Conqueror  ;  "  a  class  which  has 
gained  more  virtues  from  the  soil  and  the  people  their 
ancestors  conquered  than  were  brought  to  the  con- 
quest. His  mother,  as  well  as  his  father,  was  of  an 
ancient  family,  and  so  it  is  probable  that  both  his 
birth  and  his  domestic  training  were  blessed  with  some 
advantages,  and  cumbered  with  some  disadvantages, 
that  Latimer's  never  knew.  He  was  born  at  Aslacton, 
near  Nottingham,  July  2,  1489.  His  early  nurture 
was  of  the  hall,  and  not  of  the  farm-house;  of  a 
gentleman,  not  of  a  yeoman ;  and  so,  unlike  Latimer, 
he  was  fitted,  from  the  first,  for  the  softness  of  the 
court.  His  physical  energies  were  trained  in  a  dif- 
ferent way.  He  did  not  learn  how  to  "  lay  his  body 
in  the  bow,"  but  was  taught  to  ride  and  to  man- 
age a  mettlesome  horse,  became  expert  in  hunting 
and  hawking,  which  were  the  accomplishments  of  the 
gentle-born  at  that  day.  It  was  then,  as  it  is  now : 
the  farmer's  boy  learns  to  swing  the  axe  and  guide 
the  plough  ;  the  rich  man's  son  to  ride  gracefully  and 
play  polo  at  Newport.  And  mental  and  moral  char- 
acteristics are  apt  to  diverge  in  similar  lines.  Lati- 
mer always  calls  a  spade  a  spade.  Cranmer,  if  he 
knows  what  the  implement  is  at  all,  gives  it  some 
euphuistic  name.  It  is  doubtful,  however,  if  the 
mental  discipline  to  which  Latimer  was  subjected  was 
equal  to  that  which  was  bestowed  upon  Cranmer. 
The  father  of  the  latter,  according  to  a  chronicle  of 
the  time,  "did  sett  hym  to  scole  with  a  mervellous 


132  CRANMER. 

severe  and  cruell  scolemaster."  1  And  just  as  men 
of  that  day  meant  fifteen  times  as  much  as  we  do 
when  they  spoke  of  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence,  so 
it  is  with  these  terms  of  severity  and  cruelty.  The 
severities  of  our  school-rooms  would  have  been  mere 
pleasantries  to  the  pedagogue  of  Cranmer's  boyhood. 
He  was  restrained  by  no  tender-hearted  school-com- 
mittee in  the  administration  of  school-room  justice, 
but  plied  the  birch  in  autocratic  freedom.  Nicholas 
Udall,  the  famous  schoolmaster  of  Eton  in  Cranmer's 
time,  has  been  handed  down  in  the  verses  of  Thomas 
Tusser,  one  of  his  pupils,  who  could  not  forget  or 
forgive  the  smart  inflicted  by  his  master  :  — 

"  From  Paul's  I  went, 
To  Eton  sent, 
To  learn  straightways 
The  Latin  phrase. 
Where  fifty-three 
Stripes  given  to  me 

At  once  I  had; 
For  fault  but  small, 
Or  none  at  all, 
It  came  to  pass 
Thus  beat  I  was. 
See,  Udall,  see, 
The  mercy  of  thee 
To  me,  poor  lad." 

And  Cranmer  himself  commented  in  after  years 
even  more  seriously  upon  the  severities  of  his  own 
school-master.  "His  tyranny  towards  youthe  was 
suche,  that,  as  he  thoughte,  the  saide  scolemaster  so 
appalled,  dulled,  and  daunted  the  tender  and  fyne 
wittes  of  his  scolers,  that  thei  comonlie  more  hated 

1  Anecdotes  of  Archbishop  Cranmer,  by  Ralph  Morice,  his  Secre- 
tary. Camden  Society's  Publications. 


SCHOLARSHIP.  133 

and  aborred  good  literature  than  favored  or  in  braced 
the  same ;  whose  memories  were  also  therby  so  mu- 
tulated  and  wounded  that  for  his  parte  he  lost  moche 
of  that  benefitt  of  memory  and  audacitie  in  his  youthe 
that  by  nature  was  given  unto  hym,  whiche  he  could 
never  recover."  l 

But  however  much  Cranmer  may  have  suffered  in 
his  own  estimation  under  the  severity  of  this  early  dis- 
cipline, it  did  not  kill  his  love  of  learning.  He  was, 
from  his  boyhood  to  the  end  of  his  life,  the  enthusiastic 
scholar;  the  patient,  investigating,  and  thorough  stu- 
dent ;  loving  knowledge  for  itself,  and  never  thinking 
of  it  as  a  ladder  by  which  he  might  climb  into  emi- 
nence. He  is  a  fine  illustration  of  the  fact  that  Fame 
seeks  the  man  who  never  thinks  of  seeking  for  her, 
but  who  is  intent  upon  learning  from  the  pure  delight 
which  he  has  in  letters.  When  Cardinal  Wolsey 
founded  his  new  college  at  Oxford,  and  sent  to  Cam- 
bridge for  a  company  of  its  foremost  scholars  to  be 
fellows  of  the  new  institution,  Cranmer  was  solicited 
to  be  of  the  number.  And  it  is  evidence  of  his  en- 
tire freedom  from  anything  like  selfish  ambition,  that 
neither  the  fine  salary  offered,  nor  the  avenues  to  pro- 
motion opened  before  him  by  the  friendship  of  the 
great  cardinal,  were  sufficient  to  tempt  him  away  from 
his  humble  place  as  the  scholar  of  Jesus  College,  in 
Cambridge. 

He  became  a  student  in  this  college  in  1503,  at 
fourteen  years  of  age,  his  father  having  died  a  littlo 
before.  From  that  time  until  he  was  twenty-two,  he 
gave  himself  unweariedly,  and  with  great  success,  to 
the  usual  scholastic  studies.  I  have  already  described 

1  Anecdotes  and  Character  of  Archbishop  Cranmer,  by  Ralph 
Morice,  his  Secretary, 


134  CRANMER. 

the  intellectual  and  spiritual  ferment  which  at  this 
time  was  taking  place  at  Cambridge.  With  the  open 
and  ingenuous  mind  of  the  true  scholar,  Cranrner  was 
always  ready  to  welcome  light  from  any  quarter.  He 
never  seems  to  have  passed  through  any  such  sudden 
and  almost  violent  transition  as  Latimer  did.  He 
seized  upon  the  new  learning  as  enthusiastically  as  he 
had  pursued  the  old.  When  Erasmus  came  to  teach 
Greek  he  was  not  afraid  of  it  as  Latirner  was  because 
it  was  the  language  of  heresy ;  the  fathers  and  school- 
men were  not  sufficient  for  him,  if  anything  was  to  be 
known  which  they  had  not  taught.  And  so  after  he 
has  given  eight  years  to  the  schoolmen,  he  gives  four 
or  five  more  to  Erasmus  and  Faber.  And  then,  as  the 
books  and  doctrines  of  Luther  are  being  brought  over 
into  England,  engaging  the  attention  of  the  learned, 
and  even  enlisting  the  antagonism  of  King  Henry, 
Cranmer  determines  to  discover  their  truth  or  false- 
hood for  himself,  and  gives  three  years  more  to  the 
study  of  the  Bible  alone.  There  is  something  im- 
pressive in  this  immense  prodigality  of  time.  These 
new  questions,  and  particularly  that  radical  question 
which  is  now  beginning  to  agitate  the  minds  not  only 
of  theologians  but  of  the  common  people,  whether  the 
authority  of  the  Romish  Church  or  that  of  the  Scrip- 
tures should  dictate  the  rule  of  faith,  are  not  to  be  set- 
tled, as  some  men  think  to  settle  similar  questions  in 
these  days,  by  listening  to  a  course  of  boisterous  lec- 
tures on  one  side  or  the  other,  or  reading  a  half  dozen 
review  articles,  or  by  the  intemperate  dogmatism  of 
newspaper  writers.  He  must  get  at  the  spirit  and 
meaning  of  the  Word  of  God  by  calm  and  open- 
minded  and  unwearying  study.  And  what  he  has  de- 
manded of  himself  he  also  imposes  upon  others.  He 


THE  ROYAL  DIVORCE.  135 

is  a  doctor  of  divinity  and  has  been  made  examiner 
in  theology  to  the  university.  And  he  demands  as  the 
first  condition  of  a  certificate  to  any  student,  however 
superior  his  other  acquirements,  a  competent  knowl- 
edge of  the  Bible.  To  this  demand  he  adheres  reso- 
lutely, in  the  face  of  all  the  traditions  of  the  univer- 
sity, and  in  spite  of  the  deep  and  bitter  animosity 
which  the  unwonted  conditions  awaken  among  the 
students. 

And  so  it  comes  to  pass  that  Cranmer  is  forty  years 
old,  a  ripe  scholar,  with  a  vast  mass  of  erudition  at 
his  command,  —  for  he  has  read  slowly,  with  pen  in 
hand,  —  making  note  of  everything  as  he  has  passed 
along,  probably  one  of  the  best  furnished  men,  intel- 
lectually, that  the  University  of  Cambridge  can  pro- 
duce, when,  by  what  seems  like  a  mere  accident,  he 
suddenly  appears  upon  the  scene  of  history.  Of 
course,  like  everybody  else,  he  has  been  interested  in 
the  great  national  question  concerning  the  divorce  of 
Queen  Katherine.  He  has  thought  it  over  in  all  its 
aspects.  It  was  not  so  simple  a  question  as  we  with 
our  clearer  light  are  apt  to  think  it.  But  one  answer 
could  be  given  now.  But  we  must  put  ourselves  back 
into  the  England  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago. 
There  was,  on  the  one  side,  a  wedded  life  of  more 
than  a  score  of  years,  in  which  Katherine  had  been  to 
Henry  a  true  and  faithful  wife,  had  borne  his  children, 
had  been  known  and  loved  through  all  England  as  a 
true  queen,  and  the  marriage  had  been  sanctioned 
from  the  first  by  the  authority  of  the  Pope,  which  all 
parties  had  then  recognized.  But  there  were  grave 
facts  on  the  other  side.  There  was  much  at  stake 
beside  the  "inclinations  of  the  profligate  monarch." 
These  alone  might  have  been  and  probably  were  Jiis 


136  CRANMER. 

prime  motives.  But  his  statesmen  and  people  were 
thinking  of  something  else.  The  succession  to  the 
throne  was  endangered.  The  Princess  Mary  might 
not  live.  Or  if  she  did,  no  queen  regnant  had  so  far 
ever  occupied  the  throne.  Whether  she  lived  or  died, 
as  custom  and  law  then  were,  the  death  of  Henry 
would  have  been  surely  followed  by  insurrection  or 
civil  war.  And  so  when  the  king's  passions  suggested 
to  him  the  divorce  of  the  old  wife  and  the  wedding  of 
a  new  one,  men  of  all  classes  were  ready  to  consider 
whether  the  first  marriage  had  been  legal,  or  whether, 
if  contrary  to  the  laws  of  God  and  nature,  the  Pope's 
dispensation  had  ever  made  it  really  valid.  If  it  had 
been  wrong  at  the  outset,  then  there  was  no  heir  to 
the  throne.  And  even  if  the  wrong  had  been  made 
right  by  a  score  of  years  of  wedded  life,  still,  accord- 
ing to  immemorial  custom,  there  was  no  heir.1 

While  matters  were  in  this  unsettled  condition  a 
fearful  sickness  broke  out  at  Cambridge,  and  Cranmer, 
taking  two  young  pupils  who  were  studying  with  him, 
retired  to  the  house  of  a  kinsman  near  W^altham. 
While  he  was  there  the  king,  who  was  on  a  journey, 
passed  the  night  at  Waltham  Abbey.  Two  of  his  suite 
were  lodged  in  the  house  where  Cranmer  was  sojourn- 
ing, and  at  the  supper-table  the  one  theme  came  up 
which  was  discussed  at  all  the  supper-tables  of  the 
kingdom.  Cranmer  casually  remarked,  that  he  had 
not  probably  looked  into  the  matter  so  thoroughly  as 
his  hearers,  but  it  seemed  to  him  that  if  the  divines 
of  the  universities  should  decide  that  marriage  with  a 
brother's  widow  is  illegal,  and  if  it  were  proved  that 
Katherine  had  been  married  to  Prince  Arthur,  her 

1  See  the  question  discussed  at  length  by  Froude,  History, 
eh.  ii. 


IN   THE   SERVICE   OF  HENRY  VIII.        137 

marriage  to  Henry  could  be  declared  null  and  void  by 
the  ordinary  ecclesiastical  courts  without  any  necessity 
of  an  appeal  to  Rome.  This  entirely  innocent  remark 
made  its  author  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  lifted  him 
from  the  state  of  a  humble  student  to  that  of  the  first 
subject  of  the  realm,  and  brought  him  finally  to  the 
stake.  It  was  reported  to  Henry,  who  saw  the  point 
in  a  twinkling,  and  exclaimed,  "  Who  is  this  Dr.  Cran- 
mer  ?  I  must  see  him.  Let  him  be  sent  for  out  of 
hand.  This  man,  I  trow,  has  got  the  right  sow  by  the 
ear."  This  casual  remark  of  Cranmer  had  indeed  a 
broader  scope  than  even  he  dreamed  of  at  the  time  of 
its  utterance.  It  logically  involved  the  Reformation  in 
all  its  length  and  breadth.  If  the  Bible  could  be  con- 
sulted as  an  authority  without  need  of  appeal  to  the 
Pope  in  this  single  case  of  temporary  interest,  then 
why  not  in  all  cases  ?  If  its  decisions  were  binding 
without  appeal  in  such  a  matter  as  the  divorce  of  the 
King  of  England,  then  why  not  in  all  matters  pertain- 
ing in  any  way  to  the  interests  of  the  realm  ?  Cran- 
mer had  thus  put  an  end,  unwittingly,  to  his  quiet  and 
beloved  student  life,  and  was  immediately  commanded 
by  the  king  to  put  his  thoughts  upon  the  divorce  ques- 
tion into  a  book.  The  next  three  or  four  years  were 
accordingly  spent  by  him  exclusively  in  the  king's 
business,  in  writing  his  book,  in  going  to  Rome  and 
Germany  at  Henry's  command,  to  defend  its  doctrine 
at  the  papal  and  imperial  courts,  in  discussing  the 
subject  with  the  doctors  of  the  universities.  Had  he 
entered  upon  this  work  with  far  less  of  honest  convic- 
tion than  he  really  had  at  first,  he  could  hardly  have 
failed  under  such  a^  procedure  to  become  a  strong  par- 
tisan. Nor  need  we  doubt  his  entire  honesty  in  it  all, 
cruel  as  it  seems  to  the  forsaken  and  dishonored 


138  CRANMER. 

queen,  subservient  as  it  seems  to  the  brutish  passions 
of  her  husband.  Such  men  as  GEcolampadius,  Zwingli, 
and  Calvin  on  the  continent,  men  who  could  have  had 
no  personal  interest  in  the  matter,  entirely  agreed 
with  him  upon  the  invalidity  of  the  marriage.  And 
yet  one  cannot  but  feel,  as  he  is  devoting  his  time 
and  his  superb  scholarship  to  the  question,  that  he 
is  being  made  the  tool  of  the  king.  The  only  fact 
that  forbids  us  to  call  him  so  is  that  Henry  never 
seems  to  despise  him.  No  man  was  ever  quicker  to 
detect  a  base  mind  than  Henry  VIIL,  or  swifter  to 
visit  it  with  contempt  when  detected.  And  his  bear- 
ing towards  Cranmer  is  always  one  of  respect. 

While  he  is  away  upon  this  business  in  Germany 
(1532),  two  events  occur  which  bear  seriously  upon 
his  future  history.  He  marries  a  niece  of  Osiander, 
and  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  dying,  the  king 
at  once  nominates  Cranmer  to  the  vacant  primacy. 
Whether  Cranmer  looked  upon  this  offered  elevation 
as  a  reward  for  service  already  performed,  or  as  a 
bribe  for  other  service  which  might  be  disgraceful,  or 
whether  he  thought  his  marriage  was  a  valid  bar  to  its 
honorable  acceptance,  cannot  be  known.  At  any  rate 
he  desired  to  decline  it,  and  did  his  best  to  escape  the 
promotion.  He  tarried  long  upon  the  way  home,  and 
by  one  pretext  after  another  tried  to  delay  his  return, 
in  the  hope  that  the  monarch  would  change  his  pur- 
pose. I  think  he  must  be  entirely  acquitted  of  all 
selfish  ambition  in  the  matter.  Indeed,  the  disregard 
for  place  and  honor  must  be  considered  one  of  the  dis- 
tinguishing graces  of  his  character.  But  he  was  not 
strong  enough  to  refuse  the  king's  command.  At  his 
consecration,  when  the  usual  oath  of  ecclesiastical  alle- 
giance to  the  Pope  was  presented  to  him,  he  took  it 


MADE  ARCHBISHOP.  139 

with  an  emphatic  protest  that  his  first  allegiance  was 
to  his  king  and  country  ;  that  with  him  the  royal  su- 
premacy must  take  precedence  of  papal  authority.  By 
this  act  he  gained  a  right  to  the  title,  which  some  his- 
torians have  accorded  and  others  disputed,  of  "the 
first  Protestant  Archbishop  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land." It  was  not  much  of  a  protest,  however,  under 
the  circumstances.  It  involved  no  special  courage.  It 
jumped  with  the  humor  of  the  mighty  sovereign  who 
was  at  his  back,  and  who  had  lifted  him  to  his  seat. 
Indeed,  the  oath  would  have  been  quite  as  courageous 
without  the  protest.  The  courage  of  that  immediate 
hour  was  on  the  side  of  the  popish  party,  with  the 
bishops  and  priests  who  in  various  parts  of  the  king- 
dom were  condemning  the  action  of  the  king  from 
their  pulpits.  If  Cranmer  had  been  of  their  mind,  he 
would  probably  have  held  his  peace  and  let  matters 
take  their  way.  Nevertheless  the  protest,  little  as  it 
cost  him,  was  a  very  decided  step  in  the  progress  of 
the  Reformation.  It  was  an  official  declaration,  on  the 
part  of  the  highest  ecclesiastical  authority  in  England, 
of  the  king's  and  the  country's  virtual  independence 
of  the  Pope.  Invested  with  his  new  authority  under 
this  protest,  he  could  now,  pope  or  no  pope,  pronounce 
Henry's  marriage  with  Katherine  void,  which  he  at 
once  proceeded  to  do.  And  in  so  doing  he  virtually 
brought  the  first  fagot  for  his  own  burning  ;  for  by 
that  act  he  necessarily  declared  the  Princess  Mary  ille- 
gitimate, a  fact  which  she  will  not  forget — and  who 
can  blame  her  ?  —  when  she  comes  to  the  throne.  And 
so  poor  Katherine,  unthroned,  uncrowned,  and  robbed 
of  a  name  and  honor  dearer  to  any  virtuous  woman 
than  ever  throne  or  crown  could  be,  declared  now  to 
be  only  a  cast-off  mistress  of  the  man  to  whom  she 


140  CRANMER. 

has  been  faithful  for  a  score  of  years,  her  child  unfa- 
thered, and  declared  by  the  highest  authority  of  the 
kingdom  the  offspring  of  a  guilty  love,  goes  away  to 
weep  out  her  remaining  life  in  disgrace  and  solitude. 
Papist  as  she  was,  and  Protestant  as  I  am,  I  blush 
that  the  Reformation  ever  advanced  by  one  step  at 
such  a  cost.  She  was  a  martyr  quite  as  truly  as  any 
that  her  savage  daughter  ever  roasted  at  Smithfield, 
or  beheaded  on  Tower  Hill. 

Little  more  than  a  week  after  he  had  pronounced 
Katherine's  disgrace,  Cranmer  set  her  crown  upon  the 
brows  of  her  successor,  Anne  Boleyn.  What  a  farce 
it  must  all  have  seemed,  this  crowning  and  uncrown- 
ing, before  he  had  done  with  it !  Just  three  years  later 
he  was  called  upon  to  declare  this  second  marriage 
void,  after  standing  godfather  to  Anne's  child,  Eliza- 
beth ;  then  to  see  that  sight,  in  Christian  England, 
under  a  monarch  that  called  himself  Christian,  and 
Defender  of  the  Faith,  —  that  sight  worthy  of  Nero 
or  Herod,  —  of  a  wife  beheaded  one  day  and  another 
wedded  the  next ;  to  see  her  die  after  a  few  months  of 
wifehood,  and  then  to  celebrate  the  marriage  of  a 
fourth ;  and  then  in  a  few  days  to  preside  over  the 
convocation  which  annuls  this  bond,  and  in  less  than 
a  fortnight  more  to  see  the  royal  Bluebeard  adding 
Katherine  Howard's  name  "to  the  fatal  list ;  to  be  com- 
pelled in  a  year  and  a  half  to  tell  the  king  that  this 
last  wife  has  played  him  false,  and  to  see  him  wedded 
once  more  to  a  virtuous  woman,  who  only  manages  to 
keep  her  crown  upon  her  head  and  her  head  upon  her 
shoulders  by  a  piece  of  finesse  worthy  of  Cranmer 
himself ;  to  stand  at  last  by  the  death-bed  of  the  mon- 
arch, and  administer  the  consolations  of  the  last  hour 
to  his  earthy  and  sensual  soul ;  to  crown  his  successor, 


INFLUENCE  WITH  ANNE.  141 

and  to  stand  again  by  him  in  his  dying  hour  ;  and,  in 
spite  of  his  oath  to  the  contrary,  to  lend  himself  to  a 
plot  that  proposes  to  rob  the  rightful  successor  of  her 
crown,  and  that  brings  the  fairest,  wisest,  loveliest 
maiden  of  England  to  the  block ;  and  so  to  wind  up 
his  fortunes  with  the  day  that  closes  the  career  of  the 
"twelfth -day  queen," — such  was  Cranmer's  part  in 
the  matrimonial  affairs  of  Henry  VIII.  Read  the 
story  from  either  point  of  view,  as  it  has  been  recorded 
by  Catholic  or  by  Protestant  writers,  —  and  there  have 
been  moderate  and  reasonable,  as  well  as  violent  and 
unfair  historians  on  either  side,  —  and  the  man's  lack 
of  heroism  is  palpable  and  lamentable.  There  is  no 
heroism  in  him.  If  he  is  not  exactly  a  coward,  he  is 
but  one  shade  off.  Latimer,  though  he  believed  in  the 
illegality  of  Katherine's  marriage,  yet,  put  into  Cran- 
mer's place,  would  have  lost  his  head  from  his  shoulders 
time  and  again.  The  man's  softness  was  largely  due 
to  nature,  and  largely,  no  doubt,  to  an  extreme  view 
into  which  he  had  grown  of  the  divine  right,  the  false 
and  fatal  theory  that  the  king  can  do  no  wrong. 

Apart  from  all  this,  however,  as  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury and  Primate  of  all  England,  he  accomplished 
much  for  the  establishment  of  the  Reformation.  He 
befriended  it  always  so  far  as  was  consistent  with  his 
personal  safety.  As  we  saw  in  the  last  chapter,  he 
befriended  Latimer  and  Ridley.  Through  his  early 
acquaintance  with  Anne  Boleyn,  in  whose  father's 
family  he  had  lived  while  writing  his  book  on  the  di- 
vorce question,  and  whom  he  had  converted,  intellec- 
tually at  least,  to  a  friendship  for  the  new  doctrines, 
he  no  doubt  kept  the  king  friendly  to  them  also,  while 
Anne  was  in  favor. 

In  1533,  within  a  year  of  the  king's  marriage  to 


142  CRANMER. 

Anne,  Cranmer,  by  his  influence  in  Parliament,  se- 
cured the  passage  of  an  act  which  may  be  regarded 
as  the  official  termination  of  papal  authority  in  Eng- 
land. It  was  not,  of  course,  the  eradication  of  pa- 
pacy ;  that  did  not  take  place  in  Henry's,  nor  yet 
in  Edward's  time.  But  it  very  materially  circum- 
scribed the  visible  power  of  Rome.  It  was  legally 
determined,  and  the  legislation  was  indorsed  by  con- 
vocation and  by  the  universities,  that  "  the  Bishop 
of  Rome  has  no  greater  jurisdiction  conferred  upon 
him  in  this  realm  of  England  than  any  other  foreign 
bishop."  It  was  an  entirely  safe  degree  of  influence 
for  Cranmer  to  exert.  It  stirred  up  against  him  a 
virulent  animosity  among  the  bishops  and  clergy,  to 
be  sure,  but  it  was  a  measure  which  would  be  sure  to 
keep  him  in  favor  with  the  king,  who  was  delighted 
with  anything  that  would  confirm  his  newly-assumed 
claim  to  be  the  head  of  the  Church.  It  newly  em- 
phasized the  royal  prerogative,  and  gave  Henry's  as- 
sumption the  force  of  law. 

The  next  year  he  turns  aside  a  little  from  politics  to 
attend  to  the  more  strictly  theological  aspects  of  his 
work.  With  the  consent  of  convocation,  he  sets  on 
foot  a  translation  of  the  Scriptures.  It  was  at  the 
same  time  and  about  the  same  business  that  Latimer 
wrote  that  famous  letter  to  the  king,  after  which  Henry 
made  the  brave  man  his  royal  chaplain.  The  work 
was  accomplished  within  the  space  of  three  or  four 
years,  and,  chiefly  through  Cranmer's  and  Latimer's 
influence,  an  order  was  procured  in  1538  that  a  copy 
of  the  Bible  in  the  English  tongue  should  be  set  up  in 
every  church  in  a  convenient  place  for  public  reading. 
A  great  advance  this  —  let  us  give  Cranmer  all  the 
merit  we  can  —  upon  the  condition  of  things  only  a 


TRANSLATION  OF  THE  BIBLE.  143 

little  time  before,  when  poor  men  and  women  had  only 
little  fragments  of  the  Scriptures,  painfully  copied  by 
hand,  passed  slyly  about  from  one  neighbor  to  another, 
hidden  in  barns  and  cellars,  concealed  in  the  rick  of 
straw,  or  even  buried  in  the  ground.  "  It  was  won- 
derful," says  Strype,  uto  see  with  what  joy  this  book 
of  God  was  received,  not  only  among  the  learneder 
sort  and  those  that  were  noted  for  lovers  of  the  Ref- 
ormation, but  generally  all  England  over,  among  all 
the  vulgar  and  common  people ;  and  with  what  greed- 
iness God's  Word  was  read,  and  what  resort  to  places 
where  the  reading  of  it  was.  Everybody  that  could 
bought  the  book,  or  busily  read  it,  or  got  others  to 
read  it  to  them,  if  they  could  not  themselves :  and 
divers  more  elderly  people  learned  to  read  on  purpose. 
And  even  little  boys  flocked  among  the  rest  to  hear 
portions  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  read."  And  then  the 
old  chronicler  goes  on  with  the  story  of  a  boy  who  was 
persecuted  at  home  for  going  to  the  church  to  mingle 
with  the  little  knot  of  listeners,  fascinated  as  he  was 
with  the  story  of  the  Gospels,  and  how,  to  escape  his 
father's  insane  wrath,  he  secretly  learned  to  read,  and 
clubbed  his  scanty  funds  with  those  of  another  youth 
till  they  could  purchase  a  New  Testament,  which  they 
read  in  turn,  and,  to  conceal  it,  hid  it  under  the  bed- 
straw  ;  how,  being  discovered  again  and  dragged  from 
his  couch  by  the  hair  of  his  head  and  beaten  unmer- 
cifully, he  endured  the  beating  with  a  kind  of  joy,  con- 
sidering it  was  for  Christ's  sake,  and  shed  not  a  tear, 
his  father  seeing  which  was  more  enraged,  and  ran 
down  and  fetched  a  halter  and  put  it  about  his  neck, 
saying  he  would  hang  him.1  And  so,  though  Cranmer 

1  "  The  cruel  treatment  of  William  Maldon,  when  a  boy,  at 
Chelmsford,  by  his  Father."  —  Narratives  of  Reformation.    Cam- 


144  CRANMER. 

was  not  much  of  a  martyr  himself,  and,  if  placed  at 
that  very  time  under  the  same  conditions,  would  prob- 
ably have  been  out-heroed  by  the  boy,  was  nevertheless 
doing  something  to  help  the  cause  for  which  martyrs 
suffered. 

The  dissolution  of  monasteries  and  other  religious 
houses  was  now  going  on  with  great  vigor.  Henry, 
finding  that  as  head  of  the  Church  he  had  more  than 
his  hands  full,  had  placed  at  the  head  of  ecclesiasti- 
cal affairs  Thomas  Cromwell,  a  man  who,  as  his  fate 
proved,  was  more  vigorous,  though  less  politic,  than 
Cranmer.  In  this  matter  they  two  now  worked  to- 
gether. The  minister  and  the  archbishop  labored 
towards  the  same  end,  but  with  a  different  spirit  and 
from  different  motives.  The  one  hated  to  see  the 
kingdom  drained  of  its  wealth,  to  send  taxes  and 
annats  to  Rome,  and  to  support  an  idle,  vicious,  un- 
productive, and  worthless  class  in  the  community.  He 
had  the  eye  of  a  shrewd  and  practical  political  econ- 
omist. He  longed  to  rid  the  kingdom  of  a  burden 
which  bore  heavily  upon  the  pecuniary  interests  of 
the  king  and  the  civil  interests  of  the  people.  Cran- 
mer, on  the  other  hand,  cooperated  with  Cromwell  on 
more  distinctively  religious  grounds.  The  king,  of 
course,  did  not  care  for  the  spirit  or  motive  of  either 
so  long  as  he  could  convert  the  vast  property  held  in 
various  ways  to  his  own  uses.  He  had  lived  fast,  and 
his  treasury  was  impoverished.  His  father  had  left 
enormous  wealth,  and  Henry  had  come  to  his  throne 
the  richest  monarch  of  Europe.  But  the  vast  re- 
sources had  been  squandered,  and  this  movement 
promised  to  restore  his  fortunes.  Suddenly  it  was 
discovered  that  Parliament  had  passed  an  act  giving 
to  the  king  and  his  heirs  all  the  monastic  estab- 


ROYAL  ROBBERY.  145 

lishments  in  the  kingdom  whose  revenues  were  two 
hundred  pounds  per  annum  or  less.  Three  hundred 
and  eighty  establishments  thus  fell  at  a  single  blow 
into  the  king's  possession,  yielding  him  one  hundred 
thousand  pounds  ready  money,  and  an  income  be- 
sides of  thirty-two  thousand  pounds  per  year.  Put 
it  into  the  dollars  of  the  present  day,  and  it  means 
seven  million  five  hundred  thousand  dollars  ready 
money,  and  an  income  of  two  million  four  hundred 
thousand  dollars,  —  a  sum  of  which  ordinary  minds 
can  have  not  much  more  adequate  conceptions  than 
of  eternity,  or  the  infinitude  of  space.  Besides  all 
this,  three  or  four  years  later  the  final  suppression  of 
all  the  monasteries  was  decreed.  These  vast  resources 
had  originally  been  devoted  to  religious,  benevolent, 
literary,  and  hospitable  uses.  And  their  perversion 
to  the  uses  of  private  rapacity  was  a  gigantic  wrong. 
It  is  no  wonder  that  the  spoliation  resulted  in  riots 
and  insurrections.  Latimer  had  the  courage  to  lift  up 
his  voice  against  it,  like  the  blast  of  a  trumpet.  His 
white  and  honest  soul  could  not  bear  to  see  the  whole- 
sale sacrilege.  Cranmer  also  protested,  but  mildly. 
His  place  and  position,  and  favor  with  the  king,  gave 
him  the  opportunity,  and  made  it  his  duty,  to  protest 
with  vigor,  but  there  was  no  vigor  in  the  man.  He 
kept  the  line  of  personal  safety  in  his  eye,  and  dared 
not  overstep  it  by  a  hair's  breadth.  There  they  were, 
—  going  for  uses  which  would  be  of  no  large  benefit 
to  the  people,  of  no  advantage  for  public  accommoda- 
tion, not  for  hostelries,  and  hospitals,  and  caravansa- 
ries, for  colleges  and  schools,  —  shrines,  gold  and  sil- 
ver vessels,  relics,  fair  domains,  abbeys,  monasteries, 
nunneries,  to  be  given  to  king's  favorites,  to  be  spent 
in  useless  wars,  to  be  wasted  in  debaucheries.  And 
10 


146  CRANMER. 

all  that  Cranmer  and  his  fellow-protestants  secured  — 
and  it  marks  like  a  thermometric  scale  the  timidity 
of  the  primate  —  was  that  six  new  bishoprics  were 
formed,  and  fourteen  abbeys  were  converted  into  ca- 
thedrals, or  collegiate  churches.  Perhaps  Latimer 
himself  would  have  secured  no  more,  but  he  would 
have  made  a  brave  attempt,  if  he  had  lost  his  head 
for  it. 

The  story  of  Cromwell's  fall  is  familiar  to  all  who 
have  read  the  history  of  Henry  VIII.  Cranmer  inter- 
ceded for  the  unfortunate  man,  but  his  intercession 
was,  like  himself,  weak,  and  of  no  avail.  So  was  his 
intercession  for  Anne  Boleyn,  even  when  he  knew,  or 
might  have  been  well  assured,  of  her  innocence. 

Of  course  Cranmer  could  not  take  even  so  luke- 
warm a  stand  as  he  did  in  promoting  the  Reformation 
without  making  many  enemies.  Conspiracies  were 
formed  once  and  again  for  his  overthrow  by  Bonner 
and  Gardiner.  But  they  were  thwarted  by  the  king. 
Cranmer  was  too  useful  a  primate.  Henry  would 
rather  have  sacrificed  the  whole  bench  of  bishops 
than  lose  one  who  served  him  so  well.  But  these 
very  conspiracies  against  him  were  something  for 
after  ages  to  be  thankful  for.  They  disclosed  a  lovely 
feature  in  Cranmer's  character.  They  did  not  em- 
bitter him.  They  did  not  sour  him.  Cranmer's 
charity,  unlike  his  courage,  knew  no  circumscribing 
lines  which  it  could  not  overstep.  The  very  men  who 
plotted  against  his  life,  who  charged  him  with  heresy, 
with  malfeasance,  with  treason,  were  as  freely  forgiven 
as  if  they  had  charged  him  with  some  petty  offense 
against  propriety.  So  that  it  passed  into  a  proverb, 
"  Do  my  lord  of  Canterbury  an  injury  and  it  will 
make  him  your  friend."  He  was  certainly  Christly 


ACCESSION  OF  EDWARD.  147 

upon  some  occasions  when  to  have   been  vindictive 
would  have  been  easier. 

When  Edward  VI.  came  to  the  throne,  in  1547, 
Cranmer,  by  the  will  of  Henry,  became  head  of  the 
Council  of  Regency;  but  he  acquiesced  in  the  ar- 
rangement by  which  Somerset  became  Lord  Pro- 
tector. It  was  a  happy  day  for  Cranmer  when  he  set 
the  crown  upon  the  young  king's  brow.  The  short 
time  that  he  reigned  offered  few  opportunities  for  the 
display  of  the  weaker  side  of  the  archbishop's  char- 
acter. He  was  relegated  now  to  the  life  which  he 
loved,  and  had  not  to  study  how  he  might  reconcile 
duty  with  the  pleasure  of  the  king.  He  became  the 
quiet  student  among  the  towers  and  gardens  of  his 
palace  at  Lambeth,  and  engaged  himself  largely  dur- 
ing these  few  peaceful  years  upon  the  formularies  of 
the  English  Church.  Those  beautiful  services,  which 
every  devout  Christian  loves,  and  every  lover  of  ma- 
jestic and  rhythmic  English  admires,  speak  every  Sun- 
day, in  every  episcopal  church,  of  the  loving  labor  of 
Cranmer's  pen.  The  noble  Litany  is  offered  through 
the  words  of  his  sympathetic  translation.  The  Thirty- 
nine  Articles  were  largely  framed  by  him,  a  workman 
who,  in  this  at  least,  needed  not  to  be  ashamed.  He 
secured  to  the  English  Church  a  creed  in  consonance 
with  those  of  the  reformed  churches  of  the  conti- 
nent. He  corresponded  frequently,  and  at  length, 
with  the  wise  men  of  Germany,  of  France,  of  Hol- 
land, of  Geneva.  He  called  scholars  from  abroad  to 
shed  the  light  of  their  religion  and  learning  at  the 
English  court.1  So  passed  the  happy  days  until  that 
too  brief  reign  was  over,  at  the  close  of  which  Cran- 
mer again  gave  evidence  of  his  weakness,  and  took 
*  See  McCrie's  Knox,  Period  III. 


148  CRANMER. 

the  last  step  which  made  for  him  the  fires  of  Oxford 
inevitable.  He  stands  by  the  dying-bed  of  Edward, 
as  he  had  stood  by  that  of  his  father.  When  Henry 
was  dying  he  had  exacted  a  vow  from  Craiimer  that 
under  no  circumstances  would  he  consent  to  any  al- 
teration in  the  succession  of  the  crown.  It  was  due 
to  the  Lady  Mary,  Henry's  child  by  his  first  wife, 
Katherine  of  Arragon.1  Her  religious  tendencies 
were  well  known.  Even  Henry  himself  had  not  been 
able,  either  by  authority  or  force,  to  compel  her  to 
his  views.  Edward  feared  for  the  good  work  of  the 
Reformation  should  it  fall  into  her  hands,  —  and  af- 
ter events  proved  that  no  fears  could  have  been  too 
strong.  The  dying  boy  made  his  will,  by  which  he 
decreed  the  diversion  of  the  crown  from  the  imme- 
diate line  of  Henry  to  the  head  of  his  young  cousin, 
the  Lady  Jane  Grey,  and  with  earnest  entreaties  be- 
sought Cranmer  to  give  his  sanction  to  the  devise. 
It  was  a  hard  place,  and  Cranmer,  with  his  tender 
heart  towards  the  dying  king,  and  with  his  fears  for 
the  interests  of  the  Church,  had  not  the  strength  to 
stand  by  the  vow  which  he  had  made  to  the  father, 
which  was,  moreover,  the  thing  of  right,  and  justice, 
and  honor.  His  weakness  would  have  sealed  his 
doom  now  if  it  had  not  been  sure  before.  He  ac- 

1  By  the  will  of  Henry,  the  crown  "  was  bequeathed  to  the 
prince  (Edward)  and  his  issue,  or,  in  default  of  such  issue,  to 
his  own  heirs,  lawfully  begotten  of  his  entirely  beloved  wife, 
Queen  Katherine,  or  any  other  lawful  wife  whom  he  might  here- 
after marry.  '  For  lack  of  such  issue  and  heirs  '  it  was  to  de- 
scend, in  compliance  of  Act  of  Parliament,  to  the  Lady  Mary 
and  her  heirs,  and  next  to  Elizabeth  and  her  heirs,  provided 
they  married  not  without  the  consent  of  their  brother,  or  of  the 
Council  to  be  named  for  his  guardianship." — Froude, 
ch.  xxiii. 


MARY'S   GRUDGE.  149 

ceded  to  Edward's  request,  recognized  the  Lady  Jane 
as  queen,  and,  for  a  wonder,  continued  to  stand  by 
her  after  her  cause  had  been  deserted  by  nearly  all 
others. 

And  so  Mary,  afterwards  to  be  known  as  the  Bloody, 
came  to  the  throne.  It  was  hers  by  right,  and  the 
right  made  her  strong  from  the  start.  There  were 
some  questions  that  were  rankling  in  her  breast  that 
she  proceeded  to  answer.  Who  had  labored  with 
tongue  and  pen,  with  hand  and  foot,  through  England 
and  on  the  continent,  for  years,  to  accomplish  the  de- 
thronement of  her  mother  ?  Cranmer  !  Who  had  offi- 
cially pronounced  that  mother  a  twenty-years'  mistress, 
and  herself  illegitimate,  —  a  princess  without  a  name  ? 
Cranmer  !  Wrho  had  joined  her  father's  hand  in  mar- 
riage to  an  upstart  of  inferior  rank,  while  her  royal 
mother  was  still  living,  in  loyal  and  loving  seclusion  ? 
Cranmer  !  Who  had  helped  her  brutish  father  to  break 
her  mother's  heart  ?  Cranmer  !  And  who,  through 
all  these  years,  had  aided  and  abetted  him  in  perpetu- 
ating the  wrong  ?  Cranmer  !  Who  had  officially  ban- 
ished from  England  the  authority  and  the  rites  of  the 
Church  which  she  loved  ?  Cranmer  !  Who,  to  crown 
the  long  list  of  wrongs,  had  permitted  her  personal 
rights  to  be  ignored,  and  had  lent  himself  to  the  at- 
tempt to  put  another  upon  her  throne,  and  her  hered- 
itary crown  upon  the  head  of  another?  Cranmer! 
There  was  no  man  in  the  realm  to  whom  she  owed 
such  a  measure  of  indignation  and  wrath.1 

1  Foxe  says,  "  For  as  yet  the  old  grudges  agaynst  the  arch- 
bishop for  the  devorcement  of  her  mother  remayned  hid  in  the 
bottom  of  her  heart,  — 

"  '  Manet  alta  mente  repostum 
Judicium  Paridis  ppretaeque  injuria  matris.'1  " 

—  Narratives  of  Reformation.     Camden  Society. 


150  CRANMER. 

There  can  be  no  question,  I  think,  that  his  destruc- 
tion was  determined  upon  from  the  moment  the  scep- 
tre was  put  into  her  hand.  And  that  sending  of  Cran- 
mer  up  to  Oxford  along  with  Ridley  and  Latimer,  to 
dispute  with  the  doctors  about  doctrines  and  sacra- 
ments, was  all  a  matter  of  policy  on  Mary's  part.  She 
would  have  him  condemned  and  burnt  as  a  heretic 
rather  than  upon  these  purely  personal  grounds  which 
I  have  named.  She  could  gratify  her  vengeance  and 
yet  preserve  a  sort  of  religious  decorum,  if  decorum  is 
not  too  strong  a  word  to  be  applied  to  incarnate  and 
frantic  cruelty.1 

A  strong  glamour  of  romance  has  been  thrown 
around  the  last  days  of  Cranmer  by  many  friendly 
and  not  always  ingenuous  pens.  His  recantations  of 
heresy,  six  in  number,  in  which  he  gradually  conceded 
all  that  his  theological  enemies  desired,  are  deemed  to 
have  been  more  than  canceled  by  his  dying  declara- 
tion, his  recantation  of  his  recantations,  and  he  has 
been  triumphantly  numbered  with  the  martyrs.  But 
I  confess  that  I  do  not  feel  very  triumphant  for 
Cranmer  as  I  re-read  the  story  of  his  life  and  death. 
The  truth  is  he  did  not  withdraw  his  recantations  so 
long  as  he  perceived  the  hope  of  life  before  him. 
Only  when  death  was  certain,  and  he  already  stood 
face  to  face  with  the  judgment -seat  of  God,  and 
covering  the  truth  could  no  longer  avail  to  save  his 
life,  did  he  say,  "This  hand  hath  sinned,  and  this 
hand  shall  be  the  first  to  burn."  It  is  like  the  con- 
fession which  a  trembling  man  makes  when  he  comes 

1  It  is  also  supposed  by  some  that  the  queen  was  determined 
to  gratify  her  enmity  by  causing  Cranmer  to  suffer  the  more 
painful  death  by  burning  for  heresy  rather  than  by  decapi. 
tation,  which  was  the  penalty  for  high  treason. 


WORDS  BEFORE    THE  FIRE.  151 

under  the  shadow  of  the  gallows.  His  last  confession 
was  extorted  by  fear,  even  as  his  recantations  had 
been.  The  noble  army  of  martyrs  cannot  claim  him. 
He  was  the  victim  of  his  own  weakness.  That  fatal 
line  of  self-interest  was  his  bane  to  the  very  last. 

His  going  into  the  fire  was  brave  enough.  It  has 
some  elements  even  of  grandeur.  And  though  his 
final  confession  was  elicited  by  the  thought  that  he 
was  about  to  appear  before  God,  we  need  not  ques- 
tion, I  think,  whether  it  or  the  recantations  were  false. 
Let  me  close  with  a  few  words  which  he  uttered  1  as 
he  was  going  to  the  fire,  that  our  involuntary  reflec- 
tions may  not  get  the  better  of  our  charity. 

"  Good  Christian  people,  my  dearly  beloved  brethren 
and  sisters  in  Christ,  I  beseech  you  most  heartily  to 
pray  for  me  to  Almighty  God  that  he  will  forgive  me 
all  my  sins  and  offenses,  which  be  many  without  num- 
ber and  great  above  measure.  But  yet  one  thing 
grieveth  my  conscience  more  than  all  the  rest,  whereof, 
God  willing,  I  intend  to  speak  more  hereafter."  And 
here,  kneeling  down,  he  said :  — 

"  O  Father  of  heaven  !  O  Son  of  God,  Redeemer 
of  the  world  !  O  Holy  Ghost,  proceeding  from  them 
both,  three  persons  and  one  God,  have  mercy  upon  me 
most  wretched  caitiff  and  miserable  sinner.  I  have 
offended  both  heaven  and  earth  more  than  tongue  can 
express.  Whither,  then,  may  I  go,  or  whither  should 
I  flee  for  succor  ?  To  heaven  I  am  ashamed  to  lift  up 
mine  eyes,  and  in  earth  I  find  no  refuge.  What  shall 
I  then  do  ?  Shall  I  despair  ?  God  forbid  !  O  good 
God  !  Thou  art  merciful  and  ref usest  none  that  come 
to  Thee  for  succor.  To  Thee,  therefore,  do  I  come.  To 

1  Narratives  of  the  Days  of  the  Reformation.  Edited  for  the 
Camden  Society  by  J.  G.  Nichols,  F.  S.  A. 


152  CRANMER. 

Thee  do  I  humble  myself,  saying,  O  Lord  God,  my  sins 
are  great,  but  yet  have  mercy  upon  me  for  thy  great 
mercy.  Thou  didst  not  give  thy  Son  unto  death, 
O  heavenly  Father,  for  our  little  and  small  sins  only, 
but  for  all  and  the  greatest  of  the  world,  so  that  the 
sinner  return  and  repent  unto  Thee  with  his  whole 
heart  as  I  do  here  at  this  present.  ...  I  crave  noth- 
ing, O  Lord,  for  mine  own  merits  but  for  thy  name's 
sake,  that  it  may  be  hallowed  thereby,  and  for  thy 
dear  Son  Jesus  Christ's  sake.  Amen." 

Then  standing  up,  he  said :  "  Every  man,  good 
people,  desireth  at  the  time  of  his  death  to  give  some 
good  exhortation  that  others  may  remember  after  his 
death  and  be  the  better  thereby.  So  I  beseech  God 
grant  me  grace  that  I  may  speak  that  something  at 
this  my  departure  whereby  God  may  be  glorified  and 
you  edified."  Then  he  exhorts  them  against  the  love 
of  the  world  and  its  false  glamours,  to  obey  their  king 
and  queen  in  the  fear  of  God ;  that  they  live  in  love 
like  brothers  and  sisters,  avoiding  strife  and  conten- 
tion ;  that  the  rich  in  the  world's  goods  remember  how 
hard  it  is  to  get  into  the  kingdom  of  God  with  their 
wealth ;  that  they  be  generous  and  charitable  to  God's 
poor. 

"  And  now  I  come  to  the  great  thing  that  so  much 
troubleth  my  conscience  more  than  any  other  thing 
that  ever  I  did  or  said  in  my  life.  And  that  is  setting 
abroad  in  writing  what  was  contrary  to  iny  conscience 
and  the  truth,  which  now  I  here  renounce  and  refuse 
as  things  written  with  my  hand  contrary  to  the  truth 
which  I  thought  in  my  heart,  and  written  for  fear  of 
death,  to  save  my  life  if  it  might  be.  And  that  is  all 
such  bills  or  papers  which  I  have  written  and  signed 
with  my  hand  since  my  degradation,  wherein  I  have 


BURNT— BUT  NO  MARTYR.  153 

written  many  things  untrue.  And  forasmuch  as  my 
hand  offended  in  writing  contrary  to  my  heart,  my 
hand,  therefore,  shall  first  be  punished,  for  if  I  may 
conie  to  the  fire  that  shall  first  be  burnt ;  I  refuse  the 
Pope  utterly  as  Christ's  enemy  and  antichrist,  with  all 
his  false  doctrine.  For  the  sacrament  I  believe  as  in 
my  book  against  the  Bishop  of  Winchester  " —  And 
here,  adds  the  Chronicler,  he  was  suffered  to  say  no 
more.  And  so  he  went  to  the  fire,  as  one  has  said, 
without  the  apostate's  shame,  but  without  the  martyr's 
crown. 


VII. 

MELANCTHON. 
A.  D.  1497-1560. 

Res  et  verba  Philippus;  verba  sine  re  Erasmus;  res  sine  verbis  Lu- 
therus;  nee  res,  nee  verba  Carolostad ius ;  that  is,  what  Philip  Melancthon 
writes  has  hands  and  feet ;  the  matter  is  good  and  the  words  are  good  ; 
Erasmus  Roterodamus  writes  many  words  but  to  no  purpose  ;  Luther  has 
good  matter  but  the  words  are  wanting  ;  Carlstadt  has  neither  good  words 
nor  good  matter.— LUTHER,  Table-Talk.  DCCCXLVI. 


VII. 

•   MELANCTHON. 
A.  D.  1497-1560. 

I  AM  apprehensive  that  the  character  which  will 
now  pass  under  review  may  fail  to  awaken  that  degree 
of  interest  which  has  been  elicited  by  some  others  that 
we  have  considered.  The  landscape  of  Melancthon's 
life  is  a  quiet  one.  There  is  little  to  make  it  pic- 
turesque. It  has  no  rugged,  striking,  tragic  features. 
The  story  has  no  thrilling  episodes.  There  is  little  or 
no  dramatic  movement.  It  is  the  history  of  a  retiring, 
thoughtful,  studious  man.  His  life  is  of  even  tenor, 
seldom  skirting  even  the  outer  rim  of  a  dangerous 
vortex,  and  his  death  is  natural  and  peaceful.  The 
great  reformer,  whose  associate  he  was,  drew  both 
Melancthon's  portrait  and  his  own  in  that  remark- 
able contrast  which  has  been  so  often  quoted:  "I, 
Martin  Luther,  am  born  to  be  forever  fighting  with 
opponents,  and  with  the  devil  himself,  which  gives  a 
controversial  and  warlike  cast  to  all  my  works.  I  clear 
the  ground  of  stumps  and  trees,  root  up  thorns  and 
briers,  fill  up  ditches,  raise  causeways,  and  smooth  the 
roads  through  the  woods:  but  to  Philip  Melancthon 
it  belongs,  by  the  grace  of  God,  to  perform  a  milder 
and  more  grateful  labor ;  to  build,  to  plant,  to  sow,  to 
water,  to  please  by  elegance  and  taste." l  Theologically 
i  Luther's  Preface  to  Melancthon's  Colossians. 


158  MELANCTHON. 

and  historically  it  is  impossible  to  separate  Melanc- 
thon  from  Luther ;  they  belong  each  to  the  other  in  the 
story  of  the  Reformation,  as  the  centripetal  and  the 
centrifugal  forces  in  the  movements  of  nature,  and  for 
a  similar  reason.  The  one  is  the  necessary  comple- 
ment of  the  other.  The  centripetal  force  unbalanced 
by  the  centrifugal  would  draw  all  movement  inward 
until  it  would  cease  in  a  centre  of  perfect  repose.  The 
centrifugal  unbalanced  by  the  centripetal  would  fly 
off  and  expend  itself  uselessly  in  the  void  of  infinite 
space.  Protestantism  itself  generally  needs  to  be  re- 
strained and  modified  by  a  protest  within  itself,  as 
every  steam-engine  needs  the  self-controlling  arrange- 
ment known  as  the  "  governor  "  to  keep  its  energies 
within  the  lines  of  self-preservation.  It  is  apt  to  go 
too  fast  and  too  far ;  to  become  ultra  in  expression 
and  action.  It  was  particularly  so  in  the  Protestant- 
ism which  was  voiced  by  Luther.  It  has  been  quite 
the  fashion  with  historians  of  the  Reformation  to 
charge  Melancthon  with  timidity  and  even  with  weak- 
ness, and  the  popular  mind  is  probably  possessed  of 
such  a  conception  of  his  character.  But  weak  he 
surely  was  not,  and  if  he  was  timid,  his  fears  were 
never  of  a  personal  or  ignoble  character.  His  fear 
was  never  for  himself,  but  only  for  the  cause  of  truth, 
which  he  loved  as  fervently  as  did  Luther.  Luther 
was  boldly  and  fearlessly  executive ;  Melancthon  was 
calmly  and  thoughtfully  judicial.  Luther  saw  but  one 
thing  at  a  time,  and  drove  at  that  with  all  his  might 
and  main  ;  Melancthon  had  at  once  a  more  penetrant 
and  a  more  comprehensive  vision.  Dr.  John  Duncan 
said  of  the  two  men,  "  If  a  subject  could  be  split  up 
into  twelve  separate  points,  and  also  compressed  into 
one,  Luther  would  take  the  one,  Melancthon  the 


MELANCTHON  AND  LUTHER.  159 

twelve."  Luther  was  for  striking  the  blow,  come 
what  would,  and  perish  what  might ;  Melancthon  saw 
remoter  consequences,  and  would  modify  the  blow  in 
its  force  and  its  direction  accordingly.  Luther  was 
very  courageous,  in  that  he  dared  to  oppose  single- 
handed,  not  only  the  hierarchy  of  Rome  with  all  its 
traditions  and  venerable  associations  and  worldly  pomp 
and  power,  but  as  many  devils  as  could  pack  them- 
selves tile-fashion  upon  the  house-tops  of  Worms.  But 
I  am  not  sure  that  of  the  two  men  Melancthon  was 
not  the  braver,  for  he  calmly  dared  to  oppose  or  mod- 
ify the  opinion  of  Luther.  In  his  famous  utterance, 
"  Here  I  stand ;  I  cannot  do  otherwise ;  God  help 
me!  "  Luther  claimed  the  indefeasible  privilege  of  the 
individual  reason  to  know  and  judge  the  truth  for  it- 
self. But  after  he  had  asserted  and  gained  this  right 
for  himself  and  his  German  fellow-reformers,  he  re- 
fused the  same  right  to  Calvin  and  to  Zwingli,  and 
Melancthon  was  strong  enough  to  protest  against  Lu- 
ther's Protestantism  at  this  point.  Luther  was  the 
friend  of  private  judgment  for  himself ;  Melancthon 
glimpsed  a  principle  which  Luther  did  not  see,  the 
possibility  of  spiritual  life  apart  from  mere  dogmatic 
orthodoxy.  He  saw  from  afar  a  light,  which  has  not 
yet  broken  in  its  full -orbed  significance  upon  the 
world ;  that  the  truth  of  God  cannot  be  absolutely 
fixed  in  human  symbols;  that  the  most  perfect  creed 
is  a  totally  inadequate  representation  of  the  divine 
thought ;  that  truth  is  spirit  and  life  and  therefore  is 
perpetually  renovating  its  expression ;  in  a  word,  that 
the  face  of  a  sphinx  carved  in  stone,  though  by  infi- 
nite toil  of  human  brain  and  hand,  can  be  no  perma- 
nent representation  of  the  ever-manifesting  face  of  the 
living  God. 


160  MELANCTHON. 

In  the  person  of  Philip  Melancthon,  the  revival  of 
learning  and  the  reformation  of  religion  found  their 
first  complete  coalescence.  The  two  movements  had 
proceeded  side  by  side,  each  more  or  less  intimately 
related  to  the  other,  but  never  becoming  identified  or 
united  in  the  person  of  any  standard-bearer.  Erasmus 
had  thus  far  been  the  leader  in  the  field  of  letters,  the 
foremost  scholar  of  his  time,  and  at  first  it  seemed 
probable  that  his  mighty  literary  influence  would  be 
devoted  to  the  cause  of  religion.  He  had  attacked  as 
vigorously  as  ever  did  Luther  himself  the  vices  of  the 
monks  and  the  moral  degeneracy  of  the  age.  He  might 
have  won  as  lofty  a  renown  had  he  only  thought  noth- 
ing of  renown.  He  illustrates  the  Christian  paradox 
that  whoso  saveth  his  life  shall  lose  it,  and  whoso 
loseth  his  life  for  Christ's  sake  and  the  gospel's  shall 
save  it  unto  life  eternal.  He  was  a  self-seeker  and  a 
time-server.  He  shunned  personal  danger  and  dreaded 
obloquy.  And  so  though  he  sympathized  with  Luther, 
and  really  helped  the  cause  of  reform  by  his  Greek  Tes- 
tament and  by  his  "  Praise  of  Folly,"  he  held  himself 
aloof  as  tribulation  came  on,  and,  it  is  said,  spent  his 
days  hoping  for  a  cardinal's  hat,  which  he  never  got. 
But  Melancthon,  hardly  second  to  him  in  scholarship, 
with  reason  to  cherish  as  lofty  earthly  hopes,  who  was 
sought  again  and  again  by  the  papists  for  his  great 
learning  as  eagerly  as  his  services  were  gladly  given 
to  the  Protestant  cause,  stands  up  in  grateful  and 
everlasting  remembrance  as  the  scholar  of  the  Refor- 
mation. While  Luther  gave  to  the  movement  a  force 
which  its  enemies  could  not  resist,  Melancthon  im- 
parted to  it  a  dignity  which  they  could  not  despise  or 
ignore.  What  Leo  X.  was  pleased  at  first  to  regard 
as  a  mere  monkish  squabble,  he  was  soon  compelled  to 


THE   GOOD  ARMORER.  161 

recognize  as  a  movement  of  intellectual  and  spiritual 
power.  Behind  the  battering-rams  of  Friar  Martin's 
words,  there  was  Master  Philip's  profundity  of  scholar- 
ship and  clearness  of  thought.  These  two  men  seemed 
to  have  transmuted  and  spiritualized  the  callings  of 
their  respective  fathers.  Martin  was  the  son  of  a 
miner,  Philip  of  an  armorer.  What  the  one  took  out 
of  the  earth  in  huge  blocks  of  ore,  the  other  fashioned 
deftly  into  lance  heads  and  coats  of  mail  for  the  bat- 
tle-field or  the  tournament.  Luther  could  not  reduce 
the  new  theology  to  an  objective  system  nor  present  it 
dialectically.  And  so  the  miner's  son  drew  forth  the 
metal  and  the  armorer's  son  fashioned  it.  And  the 
church  which  to  this  day  bears  Luther's  name,  to  this 
day  uses  the  confession  of  faith  which  Melancthon 
penned. 

Again,  Luther  made  men  see  the  pernicious  nature 
of  error ;  Melancthon  lifted  before  their  vision  the  at- 
tractive beauty  of  truth.  The  one  shattered  abuses  ; 
the  other  furnished  something  better  to  put  in  their 
place.  So  that  while  the  world  is  right,  no  doubt,  in 
honoring  Luther  as  the  head  and  aggressive  leader  of 
the  Reformation,  the  popular  mind,  we  fear,  is  in 
danger  of  yielding  scant  justice,  if  indeed  it  be  not 
guilty  of  positive  injustice,  in  the  part  which  it  at- 
tributes to  Melancthon. 

You  may  have  listened  to  stories  dramatically  more 
interesting,  you  have  considered  no  characters  more 
winsome,  more  lovely,  more  thoroughly  admirable,  than 
that  which  we  now  consider  in  some  detail. 

Philip  Schwarzerd  was  born  in  Bretten,  Saxony, 
February  16,  1497,  a  year  made  famous  by  the  dis- 
covery of  the  North  American  continent  by  Cabot, 
and  the  doubling  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  by  Vasco 
11 


162  MELANCTHON. 

da  Gama,  the  year  before  Savonarola  was  burned  at 
Florence,  five  years  before  the  University  of  Witten- 
berg was  founded,  which  Melancthon  himself  was 
afterwards  to  render  illustrious.  His  father,  George 
Schwarzerd,  was  a  skillful  armorer,  a  calling  in  high 
repute  in  those  days,  bringing  the  artificer  into  the 
acquaintance,  and  sometimes  into  the  friendship,  of 
the  knights  and  nobles  whom  he  served  by  his  craft. 
Go  into  any  well-furnished  museum  of  ancient  armor 
like  that  of  the  Tower  of  London  or  Windsor  Castle, 
and  see  the  deftly-woven  coats  of  mail,  as  flexible  as  a 
lady's  purse  and  as  impenetrable  as  an  iron  plate,  the 
nicely  jointed  helmets  and  gauntlets,  and  think  that 
it  was  all  wearily  forged  by  hand,  when  there  was  no 
machinery  and  no  steam  power,  and  you  will  see  that 
the  artificer  was  of  necessity  also  an  artist.  In  the 
Middle  Ages  he  was  treated  as  an  officer  of  the  highest 
rank ;  he  was  awarded  the  first  place  in  military  pre- 
cedency, and  his  person  was  protected  by  extraordi- 
nary penalties.1  George  Schwarzerd's  excellent  work 
brought  him  into  the  friendship  of  many  noblemen,  and 
even  into  that  of  the  Emperor  Maximilian,  who  be- 
stowed upon  him,  in  return  for  a  very  skillful  suit  of 
armor,  a  family  coat-of-arms,  representing  a  lion  sitting 
upon  a  shield  and  helmet,  holding  tongs  and  hammer  in 
his  paws.  Better  than  all  this,  he  was  a  devout,  God- 
fearing man,  allowing  nothing  to  interfere  with  his 
habits  of  prayer.  Kind  to  the  poor,  gentle,  not  con- 
cerning himself  especially  with  laying  up  this  world's 
goods,  and  always  putting  first  the  kingdom  of  God, 

1  There  is  a  story  told  of  a  Highland  armorer  who  had  been 
guilty  of  some  outrage  for  which  justice  was  demanded.  But  as 
the  chief  could  not  dispense  with  his  armorer's  services,  he  gen- 
erously compounded  by  hanging  two  weavers  instead. 


REUCHLIN'S  PROTtfGtf.  163 

such  a  man  of  course  would  make  good,  honest,  trust- 
worthy armor.  And  his  wife  was  of  like  mind  with 
himself.  It  was  thus  a  godly  home  into  which  Philip 
Schwarzerd  came  at  his  birth.  For  ten  years  only  was 
he  blessed  with  its  shelter,  but  its  influences  never 
ceased  to  be  felt.  Long  years  after,  he  used  to  say  to 
his  students  in  his  university  lectures,  "  This  I  learned 
from  my  mother  ;  "  or,  "  My  father  taught  me  thus  ;  " 
and  when  he  lay  dying  half  a  century  later,  he  re- 
peated to  his  children  the  very  words  in  which  he  had 
been  blessed  by  his  own  dying  father. 

After  his  father's  death  he  was  sent  to  a  prepara- 
tory school  in  a  neighboring  town,  where  he  was  domi- 
ciled with  a  sister  of  the  famous  scholar  Reuchlin,  re- 
nowned for  the  impetus  which  he  gave  to  the  study  of 
the  Greek  and  Hebrew  languages.  The  lad  was  after 
Reuchlin's  own  heart,  and  a  great  friendship  sprang 
up  between  them.  Reuchlin  called  Philip  his  son, 
gave  him  books,  watched  the  development  of  his 
scholarship  with  a  parental  interest,  and,  according 
to  the  custom  among  learned  men  of  the  day,  changed 
his  surname  Schwarzerd,  "  black  earth,"  to  its  Greek 
equivalent  Melancthon,  by  which  he  was  ever  after- 
ward to  be  known.  Marvelous  stories  are  told  of  his 
scholarship  in  these  childish  days,  of  his  discussions 
and  disputations,  of  his  compositions  in  Greek  and 
Latin  poetry,  of  his  easy  superiority  to  all  his  fellows, 
which  it  is  not  worth  while  to  dwell  upon.  One 
almost  wearies  of  the  story  of  uniform  excellence  both 
in  conduct  and  scholarship,  almost  longs  for  some 
spice  of  boyish  mischief,  some  exploit  or  escapade, 
some  outbreak  of  fun  or  hilarity,  to  remind  us  that 
this  prodigy  is  yet  a  boy.  But  for  this  you  look  in 
vain.  The  nearest  approach  to  it  is  the  composition 


164  MELANCTHON. 

of  a  humorous  piece  in  the  form  of  a  comedy,  which  he 
dedicates  in  gratitude  to  Reuchlin,  and  persuades  his 
school-fellows  to  perform  in  the  great  scholar's  pres- 
ence, and  which  furnishes  the  occasion  upon  which 
he  is  dubbed  with  his  new  and  permanent  name  of 
Melancthon. 

At  twelve  years  of  age  he  is  ready  for  the  university 
and  proceeds  to  Heidelberg.  Here,  too,  we  are  greeted 
by  the  same  story  of  unvarying  excellence,  of  im- 
mense acquisition,  of  easy  victory ;  acknowledged  by 
the  students  as  the  Grecian  of  the  university,  doing 
not  only  his  own  work,  but  writing  orations  in  the 
learned  languages  for  his  fellow-students,  and  even  for 
the  professors,  which  they  are  not  ashamed  to  deliver 
as  their  own.  At  fourteen  years  of  age  he  is  Bachelor 
of  Arts,  and  the  university,  unwilling  on  the  score  of 
his  youth  to  advance  him  as  rapidly  as  he  wishes,  he 
proceeds  to  Tubingen,  the  university  of  his  friend 
Reuchlin.  Here,  at  seventeen  years  of  age,  he  is  made 
Master  of  Arts,  and  begins  to  lecture  upon  the  clas- 
sical authors.  His  fame  begins  to  spread  widely. 
Even  the  great  Erasmus  begins  to  fear  for  his  laurels, 
though  without  apparent  jealousy.  "  What  promise,"  he 
writes,  "  does  not  that  youth,  or  boy,  as  we  might  almost 
term  him,  Philip  Melancthon,  hold  out  ?  He  is  about 
equally  eminent  in  Latin  and  Greek.  What  acuteness 
in  argument !  What  quickness  of  invention  !  What 
purity  of  diction !  What  vastness  of  memory  !  What 
variety  of  reading  !  What  modesty  and  gracefulness 
of  behavior !  And  what  a  princely  mind  ! "  And 
again,  writing  to  CEcolampadius,  "  I  am  persuaded 
that  Christ  designs  this  youth  to  excel  us  all :  Tie  will 
totally  eclipse  Erasmus!"  A  true  prophecy  that, 
by  God's  inevitable  laws.  The  name  that  is  above 


REUCHLIN'S  BIBLE.  165 

every  name  is  that  of  one  who  was  not  grasping  of  his 
Godhead,  but  made  himself  of  no  reputation.  And 
Melancthon  had  already  laid  his  honors  and  his  hopes 
at  the  feet  of  Jesus  Christ. 

He  is  now  about  to  enter  the  conspicuous  arena 
upon  which  his  career  as  the  scholar  of  the  Reforma- 
tion is  to  be  enacted.  It  is  noticeable  that  in  his  case 
there  appears  to  be  nothing  like  an  epoch  of  con- 
version. He  is  a  warm-hearted,  ingenuous,  devout 
Christian,  and  seems  to  have  been  so  from  childhood ; 
to  have  absorbed  a  genuine  spiritual  religion  from  the 
atmosphere  of  his  early  home  and  the  tuition  of  his 
father  and  mother,  the  normal  way,  as  I  believe,  in 
the  Christian  household.  It  is  the  object  for  which 
the  family  was  instituted  at  the  first,  to  be  the  nur- 
sery of  godly  life  and  character.  The  flame  which  at 
any  rate  had  been  kindled  very  early  at  the  altar  of 
domestic  piety,  he  had  fed  incessantly  with  its  appro- 
priate nutriment  during  his  student  career.  A  little 
Bible  had  been  given  him  by  Reuchlin,  which  was  his 
inseparable  companion.  He  carried  it  in  his  bosom 
to  the  end  of  life.  It  was  oftener  in  his  hand  than 
any  other  book.  He  did  not  discover  the  sacred 
volume,  as  Luther  had  done  a  few  years  before,  but 
had  grown  into  familiarity  with  it  as  he  had  with 
his  school-books,  Virgil  and  Terence.  His  friends 
often  saw  him  perusing  it,  and  supposed  it  to  be  some 
favorite  classic.  He  was  reading  it  at  church  when 
others  thought  it  a  service-book.  While  the  monk  was 
preaching  from  some  proposition  in  Aristotle,  or  de- 
tailing the  stale  stories  of  the  Gesta  Romanorum,  or 
the  legends  of  the  saints,  he  was  busied  with  the  words 
of  Jesus  or  the  Letters  of  Paul.  It  was  thus,  as  I 
said  at  the  outset,  that  the  revival  of  letters  and  the 


166  MELANCTHON. 

reformation  in  religion  found  their  first  perfect  con- 
fluence in  this  man's  personal  history. 

After  he  has  been  five  or  six  years  at  Tubingen  and 
is  now  twenty-one  years  of  age,  the  Elector  Frederick 
the  Wise  is  seeking  for  some  scholar  to  be  professor 
of  Greek  in  his  new  university  at  Wittenberg.  And 
by  the  advice  of  Reuchlin  he  applies  to  Melancthon, 
and  by  the  advice  of  Reuchlin,  Melancthon  goes.  In 
giving  this  advice  to  the  young  scholar,  Reuchlin  with 
a  prophetic  accuracy,  which  must  have  been  a  theme 
of  wonder  in  after  years,  applied  to  Philip  the  com- 
mand which  God  gave  to  Abraham:  "Get  thee  out 
of  thy  country  and  from  thy  kindred  and  from  thy 
father's  house  unto  a  land  that  I  will  show  thee ;  and 
I  will  bless  thee,  and  make  thy  name  great,  and  thou 
shalt  be  a  blessing  ; "  adding,  "  This  accords  with  the 
presentiment  of  my  mind  ;  and  thus  I  hope  it  will  be 
with  thee  hereafter,  my  Philip,  my  care  and  my  com- 
fort." 

It  was  an  era  in  Melancthon's  life,  an  era  in  the 
history  of  the  university,  an  era  in  the  Reformation. 
These  were  stirring  times  in  Wittenberg.  It  was  then 
the  most  famous  city  in  Europe,  and  the  eyes  of  the 
civilized  world  were  directed  towards  it.  Little  less 
than  a  year  before,  Luther  had  nailed  up  his  ninety- 
five  theses  on  its  church  door.  The  great  protest  had 
begun,  and  this  had  been  its  birthplace.  And  now  a 
new  factor  was  to  enter  into  the  work.  Melancthon's 
fame  had  preceded  him,  and  the  university  and  the 
city  were  eager  to  see  what  manner  of  man  he  was. 
His  first  appearance  was  not  prepossessing.  Little 
of  stature,  shy  and  awkward,  boyish  and  insignificant, 
he  caused  a  general  feeling  of  disappointment.  But 
four  days  later,  when  he  delivered  his  inaugural  *'  On 


ENTHUSIASM  OF   TOWN  AND   GOWN.     167 

a  Keformation  in  the  Studies  of  Youth,"  there  was  a 
mighty  reaction  in  his  favor.  His  conquest  of  the 
university  and  the  town  was  complete.  Luther  was 
charmed.  Students  forthwith  began  to  throng  his 
lecture  rooms  —  two  thousand  at  once.  He  awakened 
a  greater  enthusiasm  even  than  Erasmus  at  Cam- 
bridge. From  all  parts  of  Germany,  from  all  parts  of 
Europe,  they  came,  among  them  princes,  counts,  barons, 
noblemen  of  every  rank.  And  from  the  very  first  he 
threw  himself  into  sympathy  with  the  thoughts  and 
purposes  of  Luther.  He  began  his  lectures  simulta- 
neously upon  Homer  and  the  writers  of  the  New 
Testament,  and  kept  them  side  by  side ;  saying  with 
reference  to  the  pagan  classics,  that  like  Solomon  he 
sought  Tyrian  brass  and  gems  that  he  might  bring  them 
to  the  adornment  of  the  temple  of  the  Lord.  I  have 
several  times  intimated  that  in  that  day  the  surest  and 
speediest  way  to  touch  all  Europe  was  to  come  into 
contact  with  a  body  of  university  students.  And  what 
a  favoring  providence  was  this,  that  just  at  the  hour 
when  Luther  was  striking  his  first  fierce  blows  against 
Tetzel  and  his  indulgences,  this  man  should  have 
been  sent  to  Wittenberg  to  gather  there  this  vast 
body  of  intelligent  youth,  to  inevitably  catch  the  fire 
of  Luther's  indignation  and  spread  it  through  the 
great  university  system.  And  not  only  indirectly  by 
the  influence  of  his  great  name  did  the  young  pro- 
fessor aid  the  reformer,  but  by  his  exposition  he 
brought  forth  and  illustrated  the  Pauline  doctrines  of 
grace  and  justification  by  faith.  We  can  see  here  the 
reason  why  Master  Latimer,  while  yet  an  unconverted 
papist,  upon  taking  his  first  degree  in  theology  made 
an  oration  against  Philip  Melancthon.  instead  of  tak- 
ing Luther  himself  for  a  subject.  Melancthon  was  in 


168  MELANCTHON. 

reality  spreading  Lutheranism  farther  and  faster  than 
Luther  was.  And  he  was  giving  to  Luther's  notions 
the  sanction  and  indorsement  of  the  finest  scholarship 
of  Europe.  Luther  himself  became  his  scholar  both 
in  exegesis  and  in  theology.  A  year  before  this,  in 
1517,  the  same  year  that  he  posted  his  ninety  -  five 
theses  against  the  sale  of  indulgences,  Luther  had 
begun  his  translation  of  the  Scriptures,  which  he  after- 
wards carried  on  in  his  Wartburg  imprisonment.  In 
this  great  work  he  now  received  signal  help  from  the 
far  better  scholarship  of  Melancthon.  The  scholar 
collated  the  versions,  determined  the  text,  and  revised 
Luther's  renderings,  —  a  work  whose  importance  it  is 
impossible  to  overestimate  in  the  classical  permanence 
which  was  given  to  Luther's  Bible.  And  about  the 
same  time  he  performed  another  service  which  Luther 
himself  was  utterly  incompetent  to  undertake,  in 
erecting  what  was  the  first,  and  for  a  long  time  the 
only,  important  system  of  Protestant  theology.  Luther 
had  no  system,  introduced  none.  The  scholastic  and 
patristic  schemes  dominated  all  religious  thinking.  As 
a  theologian  Luther  simply  took  his  place  in  the  suc- 
cession of  those  mighty  men  who  arose  through  the 
Christian  ages,  and  one  by  one  emphasized  each  his 
own  truth,  and  left  it  as  his  solitary  contribution  to 
the  Christian  thought  of  mankind.  "  The  progressive 
landmarks  of  theology  might  be  determined,"  says 
Dr.  John  Duncan,  "  by  selecting  typical  texts  of  Scrip- 
ture to  describe  the  points  made  emphatic  by  the 
principal  teachers  of  the  Church.  Thus,  one  might 
connect  the  name  of  Athanasius  with  the  words,  '  Go 
ye  into  all  the  world,  teaching  and  baptizing  in  the 
name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.'  Augustine,  with  the  words,  '  By  grace  are  ye 


"LOCI  COMMUNES."  169 

saved  through  faith,  and  that  not  of  yourselves  ;  it  is 
the  gift  of  God.'  'Not  by  works  of  righteousness 
which  we  have  done,  but  according  to  his  mercy  He 
saved  us,  by  the  washing  of  regeneration  and  renewing 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  which  He  shed  on  us  abundantly.' 
Anselm,  with  the  words,  '  Christ  suffered  for  our  sins, 
the  just  for  the  unjust,  that  He  might  bring  us  to 
God.'  Remigius,  '  I  am  the  good  shepherd :  the  good 
shepherd  giveth  his  life  for  the  sheep.'  '  My  sheep 
hear  my  voice,  and  I  know  them,  and  they  follow  me.' 
Luther )  '  Knowing  that  a  man  is  not  justified  by  the 
works  of  the  law,  but  by  the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ, 
even  we  have  believed  in  Jesus  Christ  that  we  might 
be  justified  by  the  faith  of  Christ  and  not  by  the  works 
of  the  law :  for  by  the  works  of  the  law  shall  no  flesh 
be  justified ; '  and  Calvin,  '  Blessed  be  God,  the  Father 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  hath  chosen  us  in  Him 
before  the  foundation  of  the  world,  that  we  should  be 
holy  and  without  blame  before  Him  in  love.'  " l 

Now  Melancthon  rendered  this  most  important  ser- 
vice to  Luther,  which  Luther  was  incompetent  to  per- 
form for  himself.  He  took  up  this  doctrine  of  justi- 
fication which  Luther  was  emphasizing  and  set  it  in  a 
system,  exhibited  it  in  its  correlations  and  dependences, 
showed  its  consistency  with  other  truth,  by  publishing 
about  this  time  his  "  Loci  Communes,"  or  Theological 
Commonplaces.  It  really  marked  a  great  era  in  sci- 
entific theology ;  Luther  declared  that  it  was  irrefut- 
able, and  worthy  not  only  of  immortality,  but  of  being 
exalted  to  the  position  of  canonical  authority.  Even 
Romish  theologians  declared  that  it  was  doing  more  to 
injure  the  papal  power  than  all  other  Lutheran  writ- 
ings together.  Its  clearness  of  method  and  incisive- 

1  Colloquia  Peripatetica,  p.  10. 


170  MELANCTHON. 

ness  of  statement  gave  its  simple  assertions  almost  the 
force  of  demonstration.  Erasmus  said  it  was  like  a 
mighty  army  drawn  up  in  order  of  battle.  Calvin  de- 
clared that  its  perfect  simplicity  afforded  an  exhibi- 
tion of  the  noblest  method  of  handling  Christian  doc- 
trine. It  spread  through  not  only  Germany,  but 
France,  and  even  Italy,  with  the  rapidity  of  a  thrilling 
romance.  A  singular  fortune  came  to  it  in  the  latter 
country.  It  was  translated  into  Italian  and  published 
at  Venice,  and  the  name  of  the  author  being  literally 
translated,  it  was  widely  read  and  heartily  approved 
under  the  name  of  Messer  Philippo  de  Terra  Nera, 
until  the  stupid  inquisitors  at  length  discovered  that 
Terra  Nera  was  Melancthon,  when  it  was  suppressed. 
The  rose  under  another  name  did  not  smell  as  sweet. 
How  wide  its  influence  became  may  be  inferred  from 
the  fact  that  during  the  author's  lifetime  no  less  than 
sixty  editions  were  issued.  It  also  indicates  to  us 
something  of  the  ingenuous  and  unshackled  nature  of 
Melancthon' s  thought,  that  he  was  making  perpetual 
changes  in  it  from  first  to  last.  He  saw  truth  as  ever 
self-revealing,  its  new  wine  ever  demanding  new  bot- 
tles, the  inadequacy  of  any  temporary  human  expression 
to  hold  permanently  the  ever  disclosing  divine  thought. 
Melancthon  became  a  controversialist  unintention- 
nally  upon  the  occasion  of  the  Leipsic  discussion  at 
which  he  was  present  as  an  interested  auditor.  This 
in  brief  was  a  discussion,  to  which  Dr.  Eck  had  chal- 
lenged Carlstadt  and  Luther,  upon  the  authority  of 
the  Pope  and  the  supremacy  of  the  Roman  Church. 
Melancthon  wrote  an  account  of  the  discussion,  in 
which  the  papal  contestant  had  been  sadly  worsted, 
and  was  thus  personally  and  publicly  for  the  first  time 
compelled  to  be  a  participant  in  the  great  warfare. 


ZWICKAU  PROPHETS.  171 

Eck  attacked  him  violently  and  with  vituperation,  but 
his  violence  was  no  match  for  Melancthon's  calmness, 
nor  his  abuse  for  Melancthon's  thorough  scholarship. 
Scores  of  pens  have  recently  rehearsed  the  story  of 
Luther's  burning  of  the  Pope's  bull  in  1520,  the  Diet 
of  Worms,  and  the  escape  of  Luther  from  his  ene- 
mies by  being  seized  by  the  friendly  messengers  of 
the  Elector,  who  carried  him  to  the  Wartburg.  Dur- 
ing this  Wartburg  imprisonment,  Melancthon  was  left 
alone  as  the  only  visible  leader  of  the  Reformation, 
and  sadly  did  he  feel  the  need  of  Luther's  inspiration. 
But  he  kept  on  bravely  with  his  work,  encouraged  by 
comforting  letters  from  his  imprisoned  friend,  until  at 
length  a  storm  arose  which  he,  mild  spirit  as  he  was, 
was  impotent  to  quell,  —  by  which  indeed  it  seemed 
to  some  that  he  was  likely  to  be  swept  off  his  founda- 
tions. We  have  already  seen  how  fanaticism  attached 
itself  to  the  work  of  Wiclif  in  England  after  he  died, 
to  the  work  of  Hus  in  Bohemia  after  he  was  burned, 
how  a  similar  spirit  arose  and  accomplished  the  de- 
struction of  Savonarola  at  Florence.  And  now,  in 
Luther's  enforced  absence,  a  corresponding  movement 
threatened  to  undo  his  work  at  Wittenberg.  A  hand- 
ful of  ignorant  enthusiasts  appeared  from  Zwickau,  — 
the  Zwickau  prophets  they  were  called,  —  claiming  the 
illumination  and  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  They 
sympathized  with  Luther's  teachings  against  the  vices 
of  the  monks,  against  papal  authority,  and  now,  with 
the  inconsistency  of  all  fanatics,  they  claimed  an  equal 
or  greater  authority  for  themselves.  "  They  boasted 
direct  revelations  from  God,  prophetic  visions,  dreams, 
and  familiar  conversations  with  the  Deity.  Scripture 
was  a  thing  of  secondary  importance.  For  communion 
and  intercourse  with  God,  they  looked  not  to  faith, 


172  MELANCTHON. 

which  as  Luther  taught  accepts  submissively  what  the 
Word  of  God  reveals  to  the  conscience  and  the  heart, 
but  to  a  mystic  process  of  self-abstraction  from  every- 
thing external,  sensual,  and  finite,  until  the  soul  be- 
comes immovably  centred  in  the  one  Divine  Being. 
This  spirit,  seemingly  so  elevated  and  pure,  broke  out, 
nevertheless,  into  fanaticism  of  the  wildest  kind,  by  pro- 
claiming and  demanding  a  general  revolution,  in  which 
all  the  priests  were  to  be  killed,  all  godless  men  de- 
stroyed, a  community  of  goods  to  be  set  up,  and  the 
kingdom  of  God  established."  1  That  the  gentle  Me- 
lancthon  was  no  match  for  such  an  infernal  outbreak 
was  not  his  fault,  but  his  misfortune.  With  his  natu- 
ral frankness  and  ingenuousness  of  disposition,  he  was 
led  to  seriously  examine  the  claims  of  these  men,  when 
they  ought  to  have  been  crushed  at  once  and  decisively. 
But  they  had  won  Carlstadt  to  their  side,  and  Melanc- 
thon  was  always  ready  to  see  the  reason  that  might  be 
at  the  bottom  of  anything,  if  possibly  any  reason  there 
were.  Greatly  to  his  relief,  Luther,  hearing  of  the 
turmoil,  broke  jail  at  once,  hastened  to  the  scene  in 
spite  of  the  Elector's  authority  and  the  ban  which  was 
over  him,  and,  like  the  enraged  lion  that  he  was,  quelled 
and  quenched  the  disturbance  forever. 

The  next  important  service  rendered  by  Melancthon 
to  the  Reformation  cause,  was  upon  occasion  of  his  ap- 
pointment upon  a  commission  to  prepare  instructions 
for  the  ministers  in  the  electorate  of  Saxony.  Here 
his  insight  and  calm  reasonableness  again  balanced 
Luther's  tendency  to  ultraism.  Luther's  doctrine  of 
justification  by  faith  was  liable  then,  as  it  has  been  in 
all  subsequent  times,  to  great  abuse.  The  doctrine  of 
the  free  forgiveness  of  all  sins,  upon  the  sole  condition 
1  Kostlin's  Luther,  Am.  ed.  p.  269. 


INSTRUCTIONS  FOR    THE  PASTORS.       173 

of  faith  in  God's  mercy  in  Christ  Jesus,  has  been  often 
so  presented  as  to  keep  out  of  view  the  necessity  of  re- 
pentance on  the  part  of  the  sinner.  Men  have  gone  on 
to  sin  knowing  that  God's  grace  is  free  and  abundant. 
Melancthon  now  comes  to  the  front  with  Luther's  doc- 
trine balanced  and  complemented  by  the  doctrine  of 
true  penitence.  He  draws  up  for  the  instruction  of 
the  ministers  a  series  of  articles  which  is  to  this  .day 
regarded  as  the  first  confession  of  faith  of  the  Lu- 
theran churches.  Its  opening  words  are  good  doctrine 
for  to-day.  "  How  many,"  he  says,  "  now  only  speak 
of  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  and  nothing  or  very  little  of 
repentance,  and  yet  there  is  no  forgiveness  without  re- 
pentance, and  forgiveness  cannot  be  understood  without 
repentance.  And  when  we  preach  forgiveness  of  sins 
without  repentance,  it  will  come  to  pass  that  the  people 
will  believe  that  they  have  already  obtained  forgiveness 
and  will  become  secure  and  careless.  Therefore  we  in- 
struct pastors  that  they  preach  the  whole  gospel,  and 
not  one  part  without  the  other."  How  essential  Lu- 
ther felt  this  perpetual  balancing  and  modification  of 
his  work  by  that  of  Melancthon  to  be,  may  be  inferred 
from  the  fact,  that  he  was  laboring  strenuously  at  this 
time  to  have  Melancthon  relieved  from  his  classical 
work  in  the  university  and  made  professor  of  theology. 
In  1529,  when  Melancthon  was  thirty-two  years  old, 
and  Luther  forty-six,  was  convened  the  second  Diet 
of  Spires,  which  gave  to  the  reformers  the  name  of 
Protestants.1  By  this  body,  the  liberty  which  every 
prince  had  possessed,  to  control  his  own  ecclesiastical 
affairs  as  he  thought  proper,  was  revoked,  all  further 

1  The  first  Diet  of  Spires,  in  1526,  had  decreed  that,  until 
the  meeting  of  a  general  council,  each  state  should  determine  for 
itself  what  religion  should  be  professed  within  its  own  territory. 


174  MELANCTHON. 

innovation  in  religion  was  interdicted,  the  celebration 
of  the  mass  was  nowhere  to  be  disallowed,  and  the 
Anabaptists  were  made  subject  to  capital  punish- 
ment. And  this  was  notably  accomplished  merely  by 
a  majority  of  Catholic  votes  which  had  been  procured 
by  papal  influence.  Against  this  was  the  Protest. 
In  this  matter  Melancthon  had  no  small  share.  The 
result  of  that  diet,  which  to-day  is  the  joy  of  millions, 
caused  his  gentle  spirit  no  little  disquietude  and  sor- 
row at  the  time.  He  had  always  cherished  the  hope 
of  a  united  church.  Indeed  it  was  his  dream,  after 
Luther  and  all  his  friends  had  declared  it  could  not 
be,  and  even  to  the  end  of  life.  In  his  great  agita- 
tion his  friends  endeavored,  in  vain,  to  cheer  him,  and 
urged  him  to  cast  his  fears  to  the  winds,  to  which  he 
gave  this  beautiful  response :  "  If  I  had  no  anxieties 
I  should  lose  a  powerful  incentive  to  prayer ;  but  when 
cares  and  anxieties  impel  to  devotion,  which  is  the  best 
means  of  consolation,  a  religious  mind  cannot  do. with- 
out them.  Thus  trouble  compels  me  to  pray,  and 
prayer  drives  away  trouble." 

Melancthon's  love  of  an  honorable  peace  in  all  mat- 
ters of  theological  difference,  —  and  I  do  not  think,  in 
spite  of  volumes  which  have  been  written  to  the  con- 
trary, that  he  ever  desired  any  other,  —  was  made  con- 
spicuous this  same  year  at  what  is  known  as  the  Mar- 
burg Conference.  The  Saxon  and  the  Swiss  reformers 
differed,  among  other  things,  upon  the  question  of  the 
real  presence  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ  in  the 
sacrament.  Luther  held  essentially  to  the  Romish 
view  to  the  end  of  his  days,  making  some  incompre- 
hensible distinction  between  transubstantiation  and 
consubstantiation,  the  difference  between  which  is  no 
more  important,  and  not  nearly  so  intelligible,  as 


AUGSBURG   CONFESSION.  175 

tho  difference  between  tweedledum  and  tweedledee. 
The  Swiss,  on  the  contrary,  believed  that  the  sacra- 
ment is  commemorative,  and  that  the  presence  is  only 
spiritual,  apprehended  purely  by  faith  in  the  recipient. 
When  they  came  together  to  discuss  the  matter,  Me- 
lancthon  closed  his  report  in  these  words,  —  words 
worthy  of  the  man,  and  worthy  to  be  emphasized  in 
these  days  which  have  witnessed  some  disputes  on  less 
important  matters :  "  Though  we  are  not  yet  agreed 
whether  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ  are  corporeally 
present  in  the  bread  and  wine,  yet,  as  far  as  conscience 
permits,  each  party  shall  manifest  a  Christian  affection 
towards  the  other,  and  both  shall  earnestly  implore 
Almighty  God  that  he  would  by  his  Spirit  lead  and 
establish  us  in  whatever  is  the  truth."  And  for  this 
lovely  spirit  he  was,  and  sometimes  still  is,  branded 
as  a  traitor  and  a  weakling. 

The  very  next  year  (1530)  a  far  more  important 
affair  engaged  his  thought  and  labor.  The  Diet  of 
Augsburg  was  called  to  deliberate  upon  the  Turkish 
war  and  on  the  existing  religious  disputes.  The  Em- 
peror Charles  V.  was  to  be  present.  Luther,  being 
under  the  ban,  could  not  go,  and  Melancthon  was 
chosen,  of  course,  to  stand  as  the  head  of  the  Prot- 
estant party.  It  fell  to  him  to  draw  up  the  articles 
of  the  Protestant  faith,  to  be  presented  before  the 
Emperor,  that  he  might  be  in  full  possession  of  the 
matters  in  dispute.  He  thus  became,  in  a  sense  in 
which  Luther  never  was,  the  very  mouthpiece  and  ex- 
ponent of  Protestantism.  He  felt  the  critical  and 
responsible  nature  of  the  task  and  shrank  from  it. 
Not  only  thought,  but  wakefulness  and  prayers,  and 
strong  crying  and  tears,  it  cost  him.  Again  and 
again  his  tears  stained  his  pages.  It  is  pleasant  to 


176  MELANCTHON. 

us  to  see  how  a  man  so  mighty  with  thought  and  pen 
could  be  humbled  by  the  feeling  of  incompetency. 
But  it  was  finished,  and  it  is  a  safe  thing  to  say  that 
no  man  then  living,  that  we  know  anything  about, 
could  have  written  the  Augsburg  Confession,  save 
Philip  Melancthon.  It  was  translated  into  almost 
every  language  of  Europe.  It  was  read  in  the  courts 
of  kings  and  princes.  It  was  the  delight  of  scholars 
and  theologians.  Perhaps  better  than  any  other  be- 
quest of  his  pen,  it  embalms,  for  all  ages,  the  memory 
of  Melancthon's  power  and  piety.  By  this  confession, 
and  more  particularly  in  a  defense  of  it,  which  he 
afterwards  wrote,  Melancthon,  no  doubt,  endeavored 
to  find  some  general  ground  upon  which  it  would  be 
possible  to  maintain  fellowship  with  the  mother  church. 
He  was  naturally  a  pacificator,  as  Luther  was  natu- 
rally a  belligerent.  But  I  do  not  see  that  there  is  any 
need  for  supposing  that  he  was  not,  from  first  to  last, 
unchanged  in  his  regard  for  the  essential  principles  of 
the  Protestant  doctrine.  It  was  his  aim  through  life 
to  assert  his  convictions  in  a  form  which  opponents 
could  accept  without  wronging  conscience  or  violating 
truth.  He  gave  other  people  the  credit  for  having  a 
conscience  as  well  as  himself.  He  respected  the  rights 
of  private  judgment  more  truly,  I  think,  than  even 
Luther  did.  And  yet  both  were  certainly  needed  for 
the  work,  as  a  sphere  or  a  magnet  must  have  two  poles, 
as  a  progressing  boat  must  be  pulled  simultaneously 
by  a  right-hand  oar  and  a  left.  How  far  Melancthon 
was  ready  to  go  in  the  way  of  concession  was  still 
farther  manifest  when  he  signed  the  articles  of  the 
Smalcald  Convention,  particular  notice  of  which  I 
must  omit,  with  the  proviso  that  he  would  acknowl- 
edge the  supreme  authority  of  the  Pope  jure  humano, 


LUTHER'S  DEATH  — LEIPSIC  INTERIM.    177 

if  the  Pope  would  permit  the  preaching  of  the  pure 
gospel.  It  is  not  strange  that  Luther's  spirit  cooled  a 
little  towards  him  for  all  this,  and  yet  it  shows  courage 
and  stanch  conviction  on  Melancthon's  part,  that  for 
the  possibility  of  preserving  ecclesiastical  unity  he  was 
willing,  even  thus  far,  to  risk  Luther's  dislike.  But 
there  was  never  any  rupture.  Each  thoroughly  be- 
lieved in  the  other.  And  when  Luther  died,  in  1546, 
and  Melancthon  was  left  alone,  his  sorrow  and  con- 
scious desolation  were  great.  No  lovelier  tribute  of 
affectionate  admiration  was  ever  laid  upon  the  grave 
of  a  friend  or  brother  than  the  Latin  oration  of 
Melancthon  for  Luther. 

The  survivor  tarried  fourteen  years,  —  years  of 
weariness,  and  yet  of  incessant  toil ;  years  of  doubled 
responsibility  and  of  painful  anxiety ;  years,  too,  in 
which  he  incurred  great  reproach,  though  I  must 
think  unjustly,  as  the  standard-bearer  of  the  Reforma- 
tion. Possibly  had  Luther  lived  he  would  have  been 
spared  the  censure  which  has  fallen  upon  him.  That 
censure  came  about,  briefly,  in  this  way.  In  1548, 
two  years  after  Luther's  death,  an  attempt  was  made 
to  harmonize  the  evangelical  and  papal  parties  by  a 
provisional  agreement,  until  the  Council  of  Trent 
should  finally  settle  their  differences.  It  is  known  as 
the  Leipsic  Interim.1  Under  this  entirely  provisional 

1  This  "  Interim "  was  put  forth  as  a  response,  on  the  part 
of  the  Protestants,  to  one  which  had  been  previously  published 
by  the  Emperor.  The  year  before,  the  Smalcald  League,  com- 
posed of  those  princes  and  cities  which  were  favorable  to  the 
Reformation,  had  been  overpowered  at  the  battle  of  Miihlberg 
(April  24,  1547)  by  Charles,  who  now  supposed  himself  in  a 
position  to  carry  out  his  long-cherished  idea  of  a  united  empire 
with  an  undivided  church.  To  this  end  he  drew  up  a  provisional 
confession  of  faith,  called  the  Augsburg  Interim,  which,  however, 
12 


178  MELANCTHON. 

and  temporary  compromise  Melancthon  made  great 
concessions,  —  concessions  which  Luther  would  un- 
questionably have  frowned  upon,  and  which  he  cer- 
tainly would  never  have  submitted  to,  even  as  an 
expedient,  for  a  week  or  a  single  day.  "  Melancthon 
declared  that,  though  the  Interim  was  inadmissible, 
yet,  so  far  as  indifferent  points  were  concerned,  it 
might  be  received."  "  He  was  willing  to  tolerate 
both  a  popedom  and  a  hierarchy,  provided,  however, 
both  were  stripped  of  divine  rights,  and  deprived  of 
all  power  in  matters  of  faith."  The  relation  of  faith 
to  works,  and  the  doctrine  of  the  sacraments,  might,  he 
thought,  be  expressed  in  such  general  terms  that  both 
parties  could  accept  them  for  the  time.  He  allowed 
the  necessity  of  good  works  for  salvation,  but  not  ne- 
cessity in  the  Romish  sense.  It  was  sufficient  simply 
to  say  that  they  were  necessary.  So,  too,  he  would 
allow  the  seven  sacraments,  but  only  as  rites  which 
had  no  inherent  efficacy  to  salvation.  And  this  was 
the  head  and  front  of  his  offense.  In  a  time  when 
feeling  was  fierce,  and  opinion  dogmatic  in  the  ex- 
treme, I  call  his  conduct  not  pusillanimous,  but  cour- 
ageous. He  afterwards  retracted  even  this ;  —  it  had 
been  but  tentative  at  most — and  never  swerved  from 
that  system  of  sound  Protestant  doctrine  which  no 
other  than  himself  could  have  constructed,  his  "  Loci 
Communes."  He  was  always  ready  to  sacrifice  a  mere 
form  of  expression  to  the  weakness  or  ignorance  of 
his  brethren. 

There  are  three  points  in  which  the  difference  be- 
tween Luther  and  Melancthon  may  be  briefly  ex- 
pressed.1 

being  distasteful  to  Papists  and  Protestants  alike,  he  was  unable 
to  enforce. 

1  F.  A.  Cox,  Life  of  Melancthon,  ch.  xi. 


POINTS  OF  DIFFERENCE.  179 

1.  Melaucthon  thought  that  the  ancient  form  of  ec- 
clesiastical government  might  be  retained  on  condition 
of  not  annulling  the  authority  of  Scripture. 

2.  Melancthon  thought  that  Luther  carried  his  doc- 
trine of  justification  by  faith  to  the  extent  of  nullify- 
ing the  importance  and  obligation  of  good  works,  and 
that  his  statements  required  explanation. 

3.  Melancthon  differed  in  respect  to  the  sacrament, 
thinking  that  Luther's  doctrine  of  consubstantiation 
differed  nothing  from  the  Romish  idea  of  corporeal 
presence.1 

The  remaining  years  of  Melancthon's  life  were  filled 
with  the  toils  of  his  professorship,  carried  on  often  in 
great  physical  weakness  and  weariness,  but  in  a  spirit 
of  thorough  consecration  to  the  cause  of  truth  and  to 
the  kingdom  of  Christ.  In  my  study  of  his  character 
and  work  I  have  come  to  love  with  a  kind  of  personal 
affection  the  gentle  scholar,  the  unassuming  and  quiet 
but  thoroughly  conscientious  and  loyal  man,  whose 
charity  was  as  broad  and  universal  as  his  attainments, 
and  whose  far-sighted  wisdom,  even  in  the  clouds  and 
turmoils  of  the  sixteenth  century,  could  discern  some 
precious  principles  which  we,  with  three  hundred  years 

1  A  story  is  told  of  a  dinner-party  invited  to  meet  Melancthon 
at  Tubingen,  at  which  the  famous  preacher  Zell,  of  Strasburg, 
was  present.  The  latter,  being  asked  by  Melancthon  what  he 
thought  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  answered,  "  Christ  simply  said, 
'  This  is  my  body,  this  is  my  blood.'  That  I  believe,  and  that 
seems  to  me  sufficient  to  be  said.  But  as  for  believing  that  I 
must  receive  the  body  and  blood,  substantialiter,  essentialiter,  real- 
iter,  naturaliter,  prcesentialiter,  localiter,  corporaliter,  transubstantial- 
iter,  quantitative,  qualitative,  ubiqualiter,  carnaliter,  I  believe  the 
devil  has  brought  these  words  from  hell."  "  You  are  entirely 
correct,"  was  Melancthon's  only  reply. 


180  MELANCTHON. 

advantage  in  the  nineteenth,  have  hardly  been  brave 
enough  to  assert. 

His  last  words,  as  he  was  asked  by  an  attendant  at 
his  bedside  if  he  desired  anything  more,  were,  Aliud 
nihil,  nisi  coelum.  "  Nothing  —  but  heaven  !  " 


VIII. 

KNOX. 
A.  D.  1505-1572. 

THE  one  supremely  great  man  that  Scotland  possessed, — the  one  man 
without  whom  Scotland,  as  the  modern  world  has  known  it,  would  have 
had  no  existence.  .  .  .  His  was  the  voice  which  taught  the  peasant  of  the 
Lothians  that  he  was  a  free  man,  the  equal  in  the  sight  of  God  with  the 
proudest  peer  or  prelate  that  had  trampled  on  his  forefathers.  He  was  the 
one  antagonist  whom  Mary  Stuart  could  not  soften  nor  Maitland  deceive; 
he  it  was  that  raised  the  poor  commons  of  his  country  into  a  stern  and 
rugged  people,  who  might  be  hard,  narrow,  superstitious,  and  fanatical, 
but  who  nevertheless  were  men  whom  neither  king,  noble,  nor  priest  could 
force  again  to  submit  to  tyranny.  —  FKOUDE. 


VIII. 

KNOX. 
A.  D.  1505-1572. 

"  IN  the  history  of  Scotland,"  says  Carlyle,  "  I  can 
find  properly  but  one  epoch :  we  may  say  it  contains 
nothing  of  world-interest  at  all  but  this  Reformation 
by  John  Knox.  A  poor,  barren  country,  full  of  con- 
tinual broils,  dissensions,  massacrings :  a  people  in 
the  last  state  of  rudeness  and  destitution,  little  better, 
perhaps,  than  Ireland  at  this  day.  Hungry,  fierce 
barons,  not  so  much  as  able  to  form  any  arrangement 
with  each  other  how  to  divide  what  they  fleeced  from 
these  poor  drudges ;  but  obliged,  as  the  Columbian 
republics  are  at  this  day,  to  make  of  every  alteration 
a  revolution ;  no  way  of  changing  a  ministry  but  by 
hanging  the  old  ministers  on  gibbets ;  this  is  a  histor- 
ical spectacle  of  no  very  singular  significance.  It  is  a 
country  as  yet  without  a  soul ;  nothing  developed  in  it 
but  what  is  rude,  external,  semi-animal.  And  now,  at 
the  Reformation,  the  internal  life  is  kindled,  as  it  were, 
under  the  ribs  of  this  outward,  material  death.  A 
cause,  the  noblest  of  causes,  kindles  itself,  like  a  bea- 
con set  on  high ;  high  as  heaven,  yet  attainable  from 
earth;  whereby  the  meanest  man  becomes  a  citizen 
not  only,  but  a  member  of  Christ's  visible  Church."  l 

Carlyle  might  have  spoken  even  more  strongly  and 
1  Heroes,  Lecture  IV. 


184  KNOX. 

still  have  been  free  from  the  charge  of  exaggeration. 
The  history  of  Scotland  is  the  history  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, and  the  history  of  the  Reformation  is  the  biogra- 
phy of  one  man  —  John  Knox.  Up  to  the  time  of 
the  Reformation  there  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have 
been  in  Scotland  any  compact  national  life,  or  any 
truly  national  spirit.  Patriotism  existed  only  in  the 
crude  forms  of  feudalism  or  clannishness.  There  was 
no  large  and  comprehensive  unity  of  feeling,  no  in- 
tegrity of  national  life.  Every  man  was  primarily  a 
clansman,  only  secondarily  a  Scot.  The  condition  of 
things  was  thus  entirely  different  from  that  which  we 
have  witnessed  in  England  and  in  Germany.  Both  in 
England  and  on  the  continent  feudalism  had  virtually 
come  to  an  end ;  the  people  had  advanced  one  degree 
farther  at  least  out  of  their  barbarism.  The  growth 
of  trade  and  of  large  towns  had  created  a  powerful 
middle  class,  which  is  always  a  fountain  and  reservoir 
of  national  spirit.  This  middle  class,  wherever  it  ex- 
ists, is  essentially  the  people.  It  must  be  looked  to, 
either  to  carry  reforms,  or  to  suppress  innovations. 
Like  the  great  fly-wheel  of  a  factory,  it  garners,  con- 
tinues, and  distributes  power.  But  in  Scotland  there 
was  in  this  sense  no  people.  The  towns,  mean  and  in- 
significant at  best,  were  severally  under  the  control  of 
the  petty  chiefs  whose  castles  stood  in  their  immediate 
vicinity,  and  their  inhabitants  knew  no  higher  law 
than  to  follow  these  chiefs  in  their  predatory  enter- 
prises, to  believe  as  they  believed,  and  to  act  as  they 
commanded.  Animosities  more  bitter  and  feuds  more 
lasting  often  existed  between  neighboring  chiefs  and 
their  respective  clans  than  ever  arose  in  later  times 
between  Englishmen  and  Frenchmen,  or  between 
Frenchmen  and  Germans.  In  a  word,  Scotland,  down 


RELIGION  IN  SCOTLAND.  185 

to  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  was  a  polit- 
ical chaos.  Out  of  this  incongruous  and  heterogene- 
ous mass  it  was  the  work  of  the  Reformation  to  bring 
the  unity,  order,  and  compactness  of  national  life. 
Whatever  should  accomplish  such  a  work  as  this  must, 
of  course,  discover  and  seize  upon  some  common  feel- 
ing of  necessity,  some  universal  want  which  lay  below 
all  differences,  some  felt  emergency  which  all  could 
recognize  as  pressing  upon  the  dearest  interests  of  all 
conditions  of  men,  whether  knights  or  retainers,  chiefs 
or  clansmen,  patrons  or  clients. 

That  common  necessity  existed  in  the  state  of  relig- 
ion and  its  institutions.  That  which  should  stand  be- 
fore the  eyes  of  men  as  the  expression  of  all  that  is 
highest  and  holiest,  truest  and  purest,  humblest  and 
most  sincere,  in  the  human  heart  towards  God,  and 
at  the  same  time  as  the  exponent  of  the  divine  truth, 
and  holiness,  and  mercy  towards  man,  had  sunk  in 
Scotland,  as  almost  nowhere  else,  into  something  more 
than  the  negation  of  all  this.  Nowhere,  outside  of 
Italy,  was  the  Church  so  corrupt,  or  so  shameless  in 
its  corruption.  It  held  in  its  grasp  the  largest  share 
of  the  wealth  of  the  kingdom.  The  lives  of  its  prel- 
ates and  priests  were  scandalous  to  a  degree  that  no 
language  that  is  now  permissible  woidd  enable  us  to 
express.  Severe  as  the  language  of  Knox  was  in  the 
pulpit,  and  broad  even  almost  to  grossness  as  it  now 
reads  upon  the  pages  of  his  history,  it  is  more  than 
borne  out  in  the  stinging  rhymes  of  the  satires  of  the 
Chaucer  of  Scotland,  Sir  David  Lyndsay  of  the  Mount. 
Indeed,  Chaucer's  most  realistic  pictures  of  the  Eng- 
lish priesthood  in  the  fourteenth  century  are  tame 
when  compared  with  Sir  David's  description  of  the 
Scottish  clergy  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth.  The 


186  KNOX. 

Beatons,  in  licentiousness  of  life,  in  insatiableness  of 
avarice,  and  in  the  cruelty  of  their  judicial  murders, 
maintained  the  traditions  of  a  system  that  had  been 
made  infamous  by  a  John  XXIII.  and  an  Alexander 
VI.  The  churches  had  ceased  to  be  resorts  for  men 
in  need  of  spiritual  grace,  or  hungering  for  the  bread 
of  life,  and  had  become  mere  marts  for  trafficking  in 
indulgences,  relics,  and  anathemas,  and  the  common 
clergy  were  themselves  densely  ignorant  of  the  mean- 
ing of  the  prayers  which  they  were  paid  to  mumble. 

In  addition  to  all  this,  even  this  poor  travesty  of 
religion  was  rapidly  converting  Scotland  into  a  mere 
continental  dependency.  It  was  hardly  more  than  a 
province  of  France.  Almost  all  the  higher  ecclesias- 
tical offices  were  filled  by  incumbents  of  French  birth 
or  training.  The  alliance  of  the  Scottish  Crown  with 
the  House  of  Guise,  and  the  emphatic  devotion  of  that 
house  to  the  propagation  of  ecclesiasticism  in  its  most 
fanatical  and  bigoted  aspects,  were  leading  many  to 
fear  that  church  and  state  together  would  soon  drag 
Scotland  into  a  condition  of  helpless  and  hopeless  for- 
eign servitude. 

Some  seeds  of  liberty,  however,  had  been  scattered, 
which  were  destined  not  to  be  wholly  fruitless.  Wafted 
like  thistle-down  over  the  border  from  England,  the 
doctrines  of  Wiclif  had  found  some  obscure  reception. 
There  had  been  Lollards  and  Bible-men,  though  in 
small  numbers,  in  Scotland  for  a  century.  They  had 
even  found  their  way  into  the  young  universities  of 
Glasgow  and  St.  Andrews.  Even  Hussism  had  had 
its  martyr  in  a  young  Bohemian  who  had  been  burned 
for  denying  the  corporeal  presence  and  the  value  of 
auricular  confession.  Scottish  students,  too,  in  these 
later  times,  had  strayed  as  far  from  home  as  Witten- 


PATRICK  HAMILTON.  187 

berg,  and  had  listened  to  Luther  and  Melancthon. 
And  it  is  to  one  of  these  that  we  must  look  as  being 
the  real  connecting  link  between  the  German  Refor- 
mation under  Luther  and  that  which  was  soon  to  be- 
come the  Scottish  revolution  under  John  Knox. 

Patrick  Hamilton,  a  young  man  of  noble  blood,  had 
pursued  his  studies  on  the  continent,  had  been  brought 
into  contact  with  Luther,  and  had  embraced  his  doc- 
trines. Returning  to  Scotland  he  eagerly  began  to 
communicate  the  light  which  he  had  received,  and  may 
really  be  considered  the  first  who  lighted  the  candle 
of  the  great  Reformation  in  his  own  land.  And  he 
lighted  it  very  effectively,  both  by  his  life  and  by  his 
death.  Connected  as  he  was,  not  only  with  the  higher 
nobility  but  with  royalty  itself,  his  influence  reached 
people  of  every  social  rank.  The  Scottish  nobility 
were  quite  as  ready  as  any  other  class  to  entertain 
reformation  ideas,  not  because  they  cared  much  more 
for  one  doctrine  than  another,  but  because  they  were 
covetous  of  the  immense  estates  which  were  held  by  the 
Church,  at  this  time  fully  one  half  of  the  real  property 
of  the  kingdom.  Patrick  Hamilton's  preaching  was 
getting  to  be  dangerous.  This  young  nobleman  Arch- 
bishop Beaton  decoyed  to  St.  Andrews  under  pretense 
of  desiring  to  confer  with  him  upon  some  ecclesiastical 
changes,  and  speedily  charged,  tried,  and  convicted 
him,  and  in  the  same  day  set  upon  his  head  the  mar- 
tyr's "  ruby  crown."  The  flame  of  persecution  which 
burned  Patrick  Hamilton  became  the  flame  of  Revo- 
lution.1 Those  who  kindled  found  themselves  power- 
less to  extinguish  it.  One  of  his  retainers  is  said  to 
have  remarked  to  the  archbishop,  "  Gif  ye  burn  more 

1  "  From  each  drop  of  his  blood  was  to  spring  up  a  fresh  her- 
etic."—  Froude. 


188  KNOX. 

let  them  be  burnt  in  how  sellars :  for  the  reik  of  Mr. 
Hamilton  has  infected  as  many  as  it  did  blow  upon."  l 
This  was  in  1528,  one  year  before  the  meeting  of  that 
Diet  of  Spires  which  gave  the  name  to  Protestantism, 
eight  years  after  Luther  had  burned  the  Pope's  bull  at 
Wittenberg,  two  years  before  Melancthon  wrote  the 
Augsburg  Confession ;  just  about  the  time,  too,  that 
Henry  VIII.  is  summoning  the  universities  of  Europe 
to  decide  the  question  "  Whether  marriage  with  a  de- 
ceased brother's  widow  is  illegal." 

Not  far  from  the  time  that  Patrick  Hamilton  was 
taking  his  martyr's  degree  in  front  of  the  old  college 
gates  at  St.  Andrews,  another  young  man  was  gradu- 
ating in  arts  at  the  sister  University  of  Glasgow.  A 
plain  yeoman's  son,  nobody  had  heard  of  him  then  ;  his 
life  was  all  before  him.  But  from  the  chariot  of  fire 
that  had  just  gone  up  a  prophet's  mantle  had  fallen 
unseen,  that  was  to  rest  through  coming  years  upon  his 
shoulders ;  and  more  than  the  spirit  and  power  of  the 
Elijah  who  had  departed  was  to  be  upon  the  Elisha 
that  was  coming  on.  This  young  man  was  John  Knox, 
the  greatest  name  that  God  through  Scotland  has  yet 
given  to  the  world.  The  training  of  his  boyhood  and 
youth  had  probably  been  not  very  unlike  that  of  Lat- 
imer  forty  or  fifty  years  before,  excepting  those  dif- 
ferences which  would  naturally  arise  from  the  different 
social  and  political  conditions  of  Scotland  and  Eng- 
land. Indeed  from  first  to  last  there  are  many  points 
of  close  resemblance  between  the  characters  and  the 
careers  of  the  two  men.  '  Knox  was  the  Scottish  Lati- 
mer.  Their  fathers  were  in  the  same  rank  of  life. 
Latimer  tells  of  buckling  his  father's  armor  when  he 

1  Knox,  History  of  the  Reformation  in  Scotland,  vol.  i.,  p.  42. 
Wodrow  Society's  edition. 


WHAT  KNOX   LEARNED  AT   COLLEGE-     1S9 

went  to  Blackheath-field ;  and  Knox,  with  a  true  Scots- 
man's liking  for  an  ancient  pedigree,  relates  that  "  his 
great-grandfather,  gudeschir,  and  father,  served  under 
the  earls  of  Both  well,  and  some  of  them  died  under 
their  standards."  Both  were  men  of  the  people.  Both 
were  thoroughly  honest  in  thought  and  speech  ;  sincere, 
loyal,  fearless ;  loving  truth  better  than  life ;  setting 
little  store  by  earthly  honors ;  incorruptible,  acting  and 
speaking  out  their  inmost  hearts  before  prince  or  peas- 
ant ;  rebuking  wrong  upon  the  throne  or  under  the 
mitre  ;  both  humorous  and  wholesomely  satirical ;  both 
beginning  life  as  devout  papists,  emerging  into  middle 
manhood  as  protesting  spirits,  scoring  lasting  and  be- 
neficent influences  upon  their  times  and  countries ;  one 
to  be  sure  passing  out  of  time  through  fiery  gates,  but 
the  other  would  have  swerved  from  his  path  not  a  single 
hair's-breadth  to  have  secured  a  more  painless  way. 

In  the  course  of  his  college  career  at  Glasgow,  John 
Knox  has  imbibed  one  or  two  dangerous  principles. 
He  has  received  them  from  a  lecturer  who  was  trained 
in  the  universities  of  the  continent,  where  the  light 
was  broadly  shining  which  as  yet  had  hardly  dawned 
upon  Scotland.  One  of  these  principles  relates  to  the 
Church,  the  other  to  the  State.  One  is  that  the  Church 
is  superior  to  its  highest  officers ;  that  the  power  of 
popes  and  prelates  is  derived  from  the  Church  itself ; 
that  a  general  council  may  judge,  rebuke,  restrain,  or 
even  depose  them  from  their  dignity ;  that  ecclesiastical 
censures  and  even  papal  excommunications  have  no 
force  if  pronounced  upon  invalid  or  irrelevant  grounds. 
The  other  principle,  relating  to  the  State,  is  analogous, 
namely :  that  the  authority  of  kings  and  princes  is 
originally  derived  from  the  people,  and  that  for  just 
cause  it  may  revert ;  that  if  rulers  become  tyrannical 


190  KNOX. 

or  employ  their  power  for  the  destruction  of  their  sub- 
jects, they  may  be  controlled,  and,  if  need  be,  pro- 
ceeded against  judicially  even  to  capital  punishment. 
These  two  principles  constituted  the  best  part  of 
Knox's  acquisition  at  the  university.  Indeed  they 
were  the  basis  of  his  whole  subsequent  career.  More 
than  that,  they  were  the  principles  whose  operation 
was  to  overthrow  the  Stuart  dynasty,  and,  a  hundred 
years  after  this  time,  to  become  the  foundation  of  the 
Puritan  commonwealths  of  New  England,  and  indeed 
of  the  American  government  as  it  is  to-day.  But  I 
say  they  were  dangerous  principles  then  and  there,  as 
the  young  man  was  to  learn  at  his  cost.  Especially 
dangerous  when  such  men  as  the  Beatons  had  the  ec- 
clesiastical power  in  their  hands,  and  the  state  was 
under  such  a  combination  of  tyranny  as  that  of  the 
Guises  and  the  Stuarts. 

For  a  number  of  years,  however,  Knox  seems  to  have 
revolved  these  principles  in  silence,  doing  nothing  to 
bring  himself  into  publicity  or  to  render  himself  ob- 
noxious either  to  the  ecclesiastical  or  secular  authority. 
Indeed,  so  far  is  he  at  present  from  making  any  break 
with  the  existing  order  that  he  becomes  a  priest,  and 
then  devotes  himself  to  study  and  to  private  tuition 
until  he  is  nearly  forty  years  of  age.  But  he  has  not 
forgotten  Patrick  Hamilton.  That  story  is  kept  alive 
in  his  recollection  by  the  cruelty  of  Beaton,  and  his 
principles  are  being  daily  confirmed  by  his  studies  of 
Jerome  and  Augustine.  The  merchants  of  Dundee 
and  Leith,  moreover,  are  bringing  Tyndale's  Bibles  into 
the  country  with  their  merchandise  across  the  German 
Ocean.  The  treatises  of  Melancthon  and  Luther  are 
stealing  in,  in  the  same  quiet  way.  Sir  David  Lynd- 
say  keeps  on  writing  his  sharp  satires,  lashing  the  vices 


HAMILTON'S  REIK.  191 

of  the  clergy  ;  and  George  Buchanan,  Knox's  fellow- 
student  at  the  university  and  the  first  scholar  in  Scot- 
land, is  doing  the  same  kind  of  work.1  Indeed,  though 
history  is  silent  concerning  Knox  for  this  ten  or  a 
dozen  years,  we  need  be  at  no  great  loss  in  con- 
jecturing what  was  the  course  and  development  of  his 
thought.  During  these  years  Henry  VIII.  has  been 
divorced  from  Katherine  and  has  married  Anne,  and 
the  papacy  has  been  temporarily  overthrown  in  Eng- 
land. The  Lutheran  Reformation  has  conquered  in 
Wittenberg,  Calvin  has  published  his  "Institutes"  at 
Geneva,  Loyola  has  founded  his  order  of  Jesuits  "  to 
advance  the  interests  of  the  Roman  Catholic  hierarchy 
against  Protestantism  within  and  without  the  Romish 
Church."  Besides  all  this,  and  much  more  abroad, 
there  has  been  no  small  stir  all  around  him  here  in 
Scotland.  The  prophecy  about  Patrick  Hamilton's 
smoke  is  coming  true.  Besides  a  multitude  of  com- 
mon people,  the  Earl  of  Glencairn,  Lord  Kilmaurs, 
the  Earl  of  Errol,  Lord  Ruthven,  Sir  James  Sandi- 
lands  with  all  his  family,  the  Laird  of  Lauriston,  and  a 
great  number  of  other  men  of  rank  have  enrolled  them- 
selves as  friends  of  the  Reformation.  Plainly  with 
these  principles  working  within  and  all  this  going  on 
around,  the  man  cannot  remain  hidden  forever.  He 
must  avow  himself.  The  occasion  comes  in  1543, 
when  Knox  is  thirty-eight  years  old. 

Cardinal  Beaton,  souie  time  during  these  silent  years 
of  Knox's  life,  had  banished  from  Scotland  a  young 
scholar  for  the  crime  of  teaching  the  Greek  Testa- 
ment. This  young  man,  according  to  all  accounts  a 

1  "  If  the  Church  of  Scotland  had  a  Luther  in  Knox,  it  had  an 
Erasmus  in  the  wide  and  polished  culture  of  George  Buchanan." 
—  Dean  Stanley,  Scottish  Church,  p.  98,  English  edition. 


192 

most  lovable  and  winsome  character,  went  to  Cam- 
bridge, and  fell  under  the  influence  of  Bilney  and  Lat- 
imer.  How  wonderfully  all  this  reformation  history 
in  England,  in  Germany,  in  Scotland,  is  jointed  and 
dovetailed  together  by  the  coincidences  of  personal 
experience !  You  recollect  how  Savonarola  converted 
John  Colet,  and  Colet  Erasmus,  and  Erasmus  Bilney, 
and  Bilney  Latimer.  And  now  here  we  discover  two 
links  more  of  the  same  chain.  Bilney  and  Latimer 
together  awaken  the  faith  and  devotion  of  George 
Wishart,  the  banished  Scotchman.  He  returns  to 
Scotland  in  this  year  1543,  and  arouses  in  John  Knox 
a  zeal  which  regenerates  the  nation.  There  is  some- 
thing almost  romantic  about  the  attachment  of  these 
two  men.  They  were  thoroughly  unlike  save  in  their 
common  love  for  the  truth.  Wishart  is  gentle  as  a 
woman,  courteous,  affable,  a  veritable  son  of  consola- 
tion ;  not  wanting  in  courage,  to  be  sure,  for  he  is 
threatened  with  assassination  continually  if  he  will  not 
stop  preaching ;  but  all  the  gentler  graces  seem  to 
be  predominant,  just  the  opposite  of  Knox.  Knox  is 
held  by  him  as  by  the  power  of  a  spell ;  is  charmed 
and  devoted  ;  follows  him  around  from  place  to  place  ; 
accompanies  him  everywhere,  with  a  sword  to  defend 
him  from  any  possible  violence  ;  plays,  in  a  word,  the 
part  of  big  brother  to  him,  though  he  himself  is  of 
no  great  stature  ;  but  he  feels  like  a  lion,  and  would 
die  for  George  Wishart.  But  Wishart's  preaching 
cannot  be  long  endured  by  Cardinal  Beaton.  It  is 
mighty,  mightier  even  than  Patrick  Hamilton's.  It 
takes  hold  of  strong  men  and  melts  them.  They  love 
him  for  his  very  gentleness.  They  attach  themselves 
to  him  as  publicans  and  sinners  once  attached  them- 
selves to  the  young  preacher  of  Galilee ;  and  the 


CAUGHT  BY   GUILE.  193 

priests  hate  him  as  their  predecessors  hated  the  Naza- 
rene,  and  for  the  same  reason.  Beaton  seizes  Wishart 
and  burns  him  up,  and  Knox  is  now  a  Protestant  to 
the  backbone. 

And  yet  it  is  a  difficult  thing  to  get  this  man  to 
take  up  the  work.  There  is  some  feeling  of  conscious 
inadequacy  about  him  which  holds  him  back.  He  has 
fairly  to  be  thrust  into  it.  The  cross  is  laid  upon  his 
shoulders  by  other  hands ;  he  does  not  take  it  up  him- 
self. But  once  laid  upon  him  he  never  dares  to  put  it 
off  till  God  Almighty  changes  it  for  a  crown.  As  we 
see  him,  in  later  years,  standing  calm  in  the  presence 
of  indignant  and  threatening  royalty,  daring  the  scaf- 
fold and  the  flame,  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  John 
Knox  ever  shrank  in  timidity  or  wept  in  self-distrust. 
The  charge  which  has  sometimes  been  made  against 
him,  that  he  was  a  man  of  hasty  and  turbulent  im- 
pulses, that  he  had  a  zeal  that  outran  wisdom,  is 
abundantly  disproved  by  the  extreme  hesitancy  with 
which  he  entered  even  the  outermost  portals  of  an  ac- 
tive reformer's  life,  and  that  only  when  he  was  forty- 
two  years  of  age. 

He  had  taken  refuge  with  some  pupils  in  the  Castle 
of  St.  Andrews,  which  at  that  time  was  the  headquar- 
ters and  stronghold  of  those  who  were  attached  to  the 
reforming  interest,  and  was  there  quietly  conducting 
their  education  and  reading  them  lectures,  among  other 
topics,  upon  the  Gospel  of  St.  John.  There  are  some 
of  the  garrison  who  hear  him,  and  the  knowledge  of 
his  teaching  gets  abroad.  There  are  some  wise  and 
some  great  men  there,  —  Sir  David  Lyndsay  of  the 
Mount,  and  Henry  Balnaves,  Lord  of  Session.  They 
desire  him  to  fill  the  place  of  preacher  to  the  garrison. 
He  is  shocked  at  the  very  suggestion.  He  cannot, 

13 


194  KNOX. 

will  not  run,  where  God  has  not  manifestly  called 
him.  Then  say  they  among  themselves,  "  He  shall  be 
manifestly  called."  Now  Knox  will  have  to  stand  for 
the  first  time  by  that  old  principle  of  his  about  the 
power  of  the  Church  to  create  its  own  officers.  It  has 
an  application  which  he  has  not  thought  of  in  any  re- 
lation to  himself.  The  plan  is  shrewdly  laid  and  skill- 
fully executed.  On  a  fixed  day  all  the  congregation  are 
assembled,  Knox,  of  course,  among  them.  A  sermon 
is  preached  in  which  is  declared  the  power  of  any  con- 
gregation, however  small,  over  any  one  in  whom  they 
perceive  gifts  suited  to  the  office,  and  the  danger  of 
such  a  person  in  rejecting  the  call  of  those  who  desire 
his  instruction.  And  then,  in  application,  said  the 
preacher,  fixing  his  eyes  upon  Knox,  "  Such  a  person 
this  congregation  find  you,  John  Knox,  to  be.  And 
in  God's  name,  and  in  the  name  of  all  who  are  here 
present,  I  charge  you  not  to  refuse  this  vocation,  but 
to  take  upon  you  this  public  office  and  charge  of 
preaching,  even  as  you  look  to  avoid  God's  displeasure 
and  desire  his  grace  to  be  multiplied  unto  you."  Then 
to  the  congregation:  "Was  not  this  your  charge  to 
this  man,  John  Knox,  by  my  lips  ?  "  And  the  congre- 
gation rises  up  as  one  man  with  one  voice,  "  It  was, 
and  we  approve  it."  And  the  modest  man,  yet  no 
braver  in  all  this  world,  is  overwhelmed,  bursts  into 
tears,  and  flies  in  confusion  and  distress  to  his  cham- 
ber.1 It  is  well  to  remember  this  afterwards,  when  he 
will  be  charged  with  willfulness  and  conceit  of  his 
own  opinion,  and  a  bigoted  desire  to  compel  the  con- 
sciences and  wills  of  men  into  conformity  with  his 
own  ideas  of  truth  and  duty.  But  he  is  compelled  to 

1  Knox,  History  of  the  Reformation  in  Scotland,  vol.  i.,  p.  187. 
Wodrow  Society's  edition. 


A    GALLEY-SLAVE.  195 

abide  by  his  principle.  This  is  the  way  that  bishops 
are  made,  if  truly  made  at  all ;  in  this  way  does  the 
hand  of  the  great  Head  of  the  Church  reach  the  head 
of  his  anointed,  then  and  now.  This  is  God's  ordina- 
tion ;  this  is  valid  until  the  same  power  shall  revoke 
it,  —  pope  or  prelate  cannot.  Henceforth  his  gift  of 
thought  and  utterance  belong  to  God  and  to  God's 
true  cause  in  Scotland  or  in  all  the  world,  wheresoever 
God's  Providence  may  send  him. 

That  Providence  sends  him  very  soon  to  strange 
quarters,  —  a  most  unpromising  field,  one  would  think. 
Yet  what  place  can  there  be  where  truth  needs  not  to 
be  lived  and  spoken  ?  A  few  days  or  weeks,  at  most, 
elapse  when  a  French  squadron  appears  before  the 
Castle  of  St.  Andrews,  and  the  little  garrison  is  com- 
pelled to  surrender.  The  honorable  terms  of  capitu- 
lation are  grossly  violated,  and  Knox,  with  others,  is 
carried  off  to  France  and  confined  in  the  galleys.  The 
life  of  a  galley-slave  was  peculiarly  calculated  to  crush 
the  very  spirit  out  of  a  man.  As  a  punishment  it  was 
brutal  and  imbruting ;  the  men  chained  together  and 
to  their  oars,  with  insufficient  room  for  any  natural 
muscular  action,  sometimes  under  a  stifling  deck ; 
compelled  often  to  tug  at  the  oar  without  cessation  for 
twenty-four  hours  together ;  their  very  food  put  into 
their  mouths  by  the  master ;  the  slightest  relaxation 
of  effort  visited  with  the  stinging  lash  ;  if  one  sank 
exhausted,  speedily  thrown  overboard,  and  another 
chained  in,  in  his  place ;  all  this,  of  course,  had  a  ten- 
dency first  to  embitter,  then  to  dehumanize  and  make 
ferocious,  and  finally  to  stupefy.  To  preserve  patience 
and  hope  and  courage,  and,  most  of  all,  an  indepen- 
dent spirit,  under  such  physical  conditions,  were  marvel- 
ous, well-nigh  miraculous.  But  Knox  was  the  man  to 


196  KNOX. 

do  it.  He  could  have  sung  a  song  at  midnight  along 
with  Paul  and  Silas,  in  the  Philippian  dungeon,  with 
his  feet  fast  in  the  stocks.  Like  them,  he  not  only 
preserved  his  own  spirit,  but  was  a  comfort  to  his  fel- 
low-prisoners. Every  attempt  was  made  to  induce  or 
compel  them  to  deny  their  faith,  but  there  was  no  wa- 
vering even  on  the  part  of  a  single  man.  The  spirit 
of  Knox  seemed  to  take  possession  of  the  entire  crew. 
"  Mother !  Mother  of  God,  forsooth ! "  he  says,  in 
scornful  indignation,  as  the  galley-master  holds  out  an 
image  of  the  virgin  for  him  to  kiss,  and,  releasing  a 
hand  from  the  oar  for  an  instant,  he  sweeps  the  thing 
overboard  :  "  She  is  but  a  painted  bredd,  I  tell  you — 
let  her  swim !  "  l  In  their  cruising,  they  come  again 
under  the  walls  of  dear  old  St.  Andrews,  and  the  pris- 
oners recognize  the  beloved  towers,  but  almost  despair 
as  they  are  not  permitted  to  touch  their  native  soil. 
"  Be  of  good  cheer,"  he  says ;  "  I  see  the  steeple  of  that 
place  where  God  first  opened  my  mouth  to  his  glory, 
and  I  shall  not  depart  this  life  until  I  have  glorified 
Him  again  in  that  same  place."  And  yet,  notwith- 
standing all  his  cheer  and  bravery,  I  cannot  doubt  that 
this  two  years'  life  of  slavery  in  the  galleys,  while  it 
made  his  convictions  the  more  precious,  and,  as  it 
were  fire,  burnt  the  gold  of  truth  into  the  very  sub- 
stance of  his  mind,  added  somewhat,  also,  to  the  as- 
perity of  his  character.  It  is  well  for  us  to  recollect 
what  a  much  suffering  man  he  had  been  at  the  hands 
of  that  system  which  he  afterwards  fought  with  such 
indignation  and  almost  unsparing  fury.  He  will  need 
no  apology  for  his  warfare  that  gives  and  asks  no 
quarter. 

1  Kiiox,  Reformation  in  Scotland,  vol.  i.,  p.  227.  Wodrow  Soci- 
ety's edition.  "  After  that,"  he  quaintly  adds,  "  was  no  Scotish 
man  urged  with  that  idolatrie." 


KNOX  IN  ENGLAND.  197 

When  Edward  VI.  came  to  the  throne  of  England 
it  is  supposed  that  Knox  was  released  at  his  personal 
request.  At  any  rate  we  find  him  now  for  a  number 
of  years  in  England,  and  made  one  of  the  king's 
chaplains.  This  is  that  happy  time  when  Latimer 
was  tarrying  with  Cranmer  in  Lambeth,  and  Knox 
must  have  frequently  been  in  conference  with  them. 
Here  in  England,  notwithstanding  he  is  worn  and 
wasted  with  his  long  galley  servitude,  he  enters  into 
abundant  labors,  —  stationed  at  Berwick,  and  then  at 
Newcastle  in  the  north,  preaching  every  day  and  often 
several  times  in  the  day,  the  English  Church  glad  to 
receive  him,  notwithstanding  his  Scottish  accent,  and 
even  almost  thrusting  him  into  places  of  distinction. 
They  want  to  make  a  bishop  of  him.  The  Duke  of 
Northumberland  writes  to  Secretary  Cecil,  that  he 
would  make  a  good  whetstone  to  sharpen  my  Lord 
of  Canterbury ;  but  Cranmer,  we  fear,  would  have 
wanted  even  more  sharpening  than  Knox  could  have 
given  him :  it  was  temper,  rather  than  sharpening, 
that  that  blade  needed,  and  Knox  could  not  have  im- 
parted that,  even  as  Latimer  had  failed.  But  Knox 
would  not  have  the  English  bishopric,  nor  yet  the  vic- 
arage of  an  important  church,  but  kept  his  eye  and 
his  heart  towards  Scotland.  He  did  not  believe  there 
was  any  Scriptural  authority  for  the  episcopal  office 
as  it  existed  either  in  the  Komish  or  the  English 
Church.  The  only  true  bishop,  he  said,  was  a  preacher 
of  the  gospel ;  his  principles  were  of  more  consequence 
to  him  than  a  mitre  and  a  crozier,  and  all  the  honor 
and  power  and  emolument  that  would  have  accompa- 
nied them  ;  but  he  would  preach  for  these  English- 
men anywhere  in  the  kingdom  till  such  time  as  it 
pleased  God  to  let  him  go  over  the  Scottish  border. 


198 

And  that  time  was  not  yet.  For  the  work  which 
needed  to  be  done  in  Scotland  he  needed  some  train- 
ing different  from  any  that  had  thus  far  fallen  to  him. 

And  so  when  Bloody  Mary  comes  to  the  throne,  he 
is  compelled  to  go  to  the  continent.  Had  he  accepted 
the  bishopric,  or  even  a  simple  vicarage,  we  may  be 
sure  he  would  not  have  done  this;  he  would  have 
stayed  by  his  post  till  Mary  had  dismissed  him,  along 
with  Latimer  and  Ridley  and  Cranmer,  through  the 
flames.  But  he  was  simply  an  exile,  a  wandering 
preacher ;  and  so  he  turns  his  steps  to  the  continent, 
January,  1554. 

I  cannot  dwell  upon  this  continental  experience,  his 
visits  to  various  French  and  Swiss  churches,  his  con- 
ferences with  learned  men,  his  acquaintance  with  Cal- 
vin and  the  regimen  of  Geneva,  from  which  he  was 
confirmed  in  those  old  principles  of  his  by  seeing  their 
practical  working,  and  which  were  afterward  to  be 
embodied  in  the  constitution  of  the  Scottish  Church. 
Neither  can  I  dwell  upon  his  literary  work,  in  aiding 
in  the  translation  of  the  English  version  of  the  Sacred 
Scriptures  known  as  the  Geneva  Bible,  and  in  compos- 
ing the  Liturgy  which  became  the  guide  of  the  public 
worship  of  the  Reformed  Church  of  Scotland  down 
to  the  time  of  the  Westminster  Confession.  There  is 
one  feature  that  comes  out  clearly  in  Knox's  charac- 
ter at  this  time  that  we  must  not  lose  sight  of.  He  is 
far  more  stern  in  his  judgment  of  himself  than  he  ever 
is  in  the  denunciation  of  others.  No  one  has  read 
Knox's  character  aright  who  has  come  to  look  upon 
him  as  a  narrow,  uncharitable,  censorious,  self-right- 
eous, and  self -constituted  judge  of  the  characters  of 
those  who  differed  from  him.  In  a  letter  written  dur- 
ing this  Geneva  exile  to  his  mother-in-law,  who  was  to 


KNOX  AND   CALVIN—  "FIRST  BLAST."     199 

him  a  mother  in  deed,  he  says :  "  Alas  !  this  day,  my 
conscience  accuseth  me  that  I  spake  not  so  plainly  as 
my  duty  was  to  have  done.  The  blind  love  that  I  did 
bear  to  this  my  wicked  carcass  was  the  chief  cause 
that  I  was  not  fervent  and  faithful  enough.  I  was 
not  so  diligent  as  my  office  required,  but  sometime,  by 
counsel  of  carnal  friends,  I  spared  the  body ;  some- 
time I  spared  in  worldly  business.  And  besides  I  was 
assaulted,  yea,  infected  with  more  gross  sins :  that  is, 
my  wicked  nature  desired  the  favor,  the  estimation, 
and  praise  of  men,  and  so  privily  and  craftily  did 
they  enter  into  my  breast  that  I  could  not  perceive 
myself  to  be  wounded  till  vainglory  had  almost  got  the 
upper  hand."  This  may  be  called  morbid  ;  it  is  cer- 
tainly conscientious  and  unsparing  towards  himself. 

The  influence  of  Geneva  upon  Knox  has  probably 
been  overestimated.  His  opinions  and  principles  were 
formed  long  before  he  came  into  contact  with  Calvin 
and  Beza.  Calvin  was  in  no  sense  his  master,  but 
his  confrere.  Knox  was  fifty  years  of  age  before  he 
saw  Calvin.  He  was  confirmed  by  the  Genevan,  not 
conformed  by  him.  Those  early  principles  which  were 
instilled  into  him  at  Glasgow  College  were  adopted  by 
him  before  they  were  received  by  Calvin ;  and  those 
principles,  underlying  as  they  did  the  thinking  of  both, 
brought  the  two  men  into  life-long  sympathy. 

I  must  not  pass  over  one  of  the  most  important,  and 
certainly  the  most  injudicious,  act  of  Knox's  life,  which 
was  performed  here  at  Geneva,  —  an  act  which  he  un- 
doubtedly felt  to  be  called  for  at  the  time,  but  which 
sadly  handicapped  him  afterward.  Aroused  to  fierce 
indignation  by  the  cruelties  of  Bloody  Mary,  which 
had  exiled  him  to  the  continent,  he  wrote  a  treatise 
against  woman's  rights,  which  he  called  "  The  First 


200  KNOX. 

Blast  of  the  Trumpet  against  the  Monstruous  Regiment 
of  Women ; "  in  which  he  inveighed  strongly  against 
the  right  of  woman  to  hold  the  reins  of  authority.  He 
gained  sufficient  wisdom  never  to  give  a  second  blast.1 
The  book  made  him  obnoxious  to  two  queens,  during 
whose  reigns  he  had  his  part  to  play ;  to  Mary,  Queen 
of  .Scots,  who  was  soon  to  take  her  hereditary  throne, 
and  to  Elizabeth  of  England,  who  was  to  exert  as  great 
a  power  in  Scotland  as  any  of  its  own  sovereigns. 

In  1559,  after  his  long  exile  of  twelve  years,  which 
had  been  but  once,  and  then  briefly,  interrupted,  Knox 
returned  to  Scotland  for  the  conflict  which  ended  only 
with  his  life.  Mary  of  Guise,  widow  of  James  V., 
was  acting  as  regent.  Through  all  these  years  the  ref- 
ormation movement  was  growing  and  consolidating, 
and  through  all  these  years  it  had  been  looking  to- 
wards Knox  as  its  only  capable  leader,  and  its  friends 
had  longed  for  his  permanent  restoration.  He  re- 
turned just  in  time,  as  he  said,  for  the  brunt  of  the 
battle.  The  regent  had  just  entered  into  an  agree- 
ment with  the  Guises  of  France  to  assist  them  in  their 
designs  against  Elizabeth,  and  as  a  part  of  the  plan 
had  determined  to  suppress  the  Reformation  by  force. 
This  determination  had  the  effect  to  still  further  con- 
solidate and  arouse  the  reforming  interest,  which  was 
doubly  courageous  now  that  Knox  was  among  them. 
Almost  immediately,  without  any  intention  on  his 
part,  he  was  forced  into  the  part  of  an  iconoclast.  Af- 
ter one  of  his  sermons  at  Perth  against  image  worship 
and  idolatry  of  the  mass,  the  "  rascall  multitude,"  as 

1  "My  purpose  is  thrise  to  blowe  the  trumpet  in  the  same 
mater,  if  God  so  permitte  :  twise  I  intende  to  do  it  without 
name,  but  at  the  last  blast,  to  take  the  blame  vpon  my  selfe,  that 
all  others  may  be  purged."  —  Preface  to  The  First  Elast,  etc. 


ICONOCLASM.  201 

Knox  himself  called  them,  beset  a  priest  who  was  about 
to  celebrate  mass,  and  did  not  desist  until  they  had 
sacked  a  monastery  and  laid  it  in  ruins.  It  was  a 
wild,  frantic  outburst  of  the  people  because  their  min- 
isters had  just  been  outlawed.  It  was  an  act  of  that 
barbarism  which  Rome  itself  had  done  its  best  to  per- 
petuate. "  It  is  hard,  certainly,"  says  Principal  Tul- 
loch,1  commenting  upon  the  inconoclasm  of  the  Scot- 
tish Reformation,  "  to  blame  that  Reformation  for  an 
odious  inheritance  of  social  disorder  transmitted  to  it 
by  the  corrupt  system  which  it  displaced."  It  was  not 
an  act  of  premeditated  rebellion.  But  the  people  had 
suddenly  found  their  power,  and  the  queen-regent  dis- 
covered it  too,  and  prudently  made  an  accommodation 
with  the  Protestants.  The  Protestant  leaders,  who  now 
came  to  be  known  as  the  Lords  of  the  Congregation, 
soon  took  possession  of  the  capital,  deposed  the  regent, 
concluded  a  treaty  with  England,  and  with  the  assist- 
ance of  troops,  sent  to  their  aid  by  Elizabeth,  became 
the  masters  of  Scotland,  and  called  a  free  parliament 
to  settle  religious  difficulties.  Almost  instantaneously 
Scotland  was  revolutionized.  The  hated  repression 
exercised  by  the  Guises  was  virtually  at  an  end.  By 
a  single  act  the  reformed  religion  became  the  religion 
of  the  state,  and  Knox  was  the  Savonarola  whose  "in- 
fluence was  paramount.  Roman  Catholic  worship  was 
interdicted,  and  the  Pope's  jurisdiction  abolished.  It 
was  the  real  beginning  of  anything  like  a  compact  and 
unified  national  life  for  Scotland.  But  so  far  it  was 
the  work  of  the  people  by  themselves.  The  estates 
had  wrought,  and  with  great  unanimity,  but  without 
the  throne.  Mary  of  Guise  died  shortly  after  her  dep- 
osition, and  young  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  came  home 
1  Luther  and  other  Leaders,  p.  399. 


202 

the  next  year  to  take  her  throne.  And  now  begins 
that  long  story,  upon  which  fortunately  we  are  not  re- 
quired to  enter  far,  which  has  been  the  theme  of  con- 
flicting historians  and  romancists  and  poets  and  dram- 
atists for  three  hundred  years.  What  was  Mary  of 
Scotland?  Can  anybody  surely  tell  us?  That  she 
was  young  and  fair  and  fascinating  all  agree.  That 
she  was  frail  too  many  say.  That  she  was  relentless, 
cruel,  even  to  treachery  and  murder,  is  averred.  That 
she  was  an  injured  saint  a  few  have  been  bold  enough 
to  affirm.  That  she  was  a  combination  of  Guise  and 
Stuart  blood  is  not  antecedently  in  her  favor.  That 
she  married  Darnley  without  love,  and  afterwards, 
while  professing  most  ardent  affection,  was  privy  to  the 
diabolism  of  blowing  him  up  with  gunpowder  while  a 
convalescent ;  that  she  took  an  Italian  musician  for 
her  paramour,  whose  blood-stains  are  still  on  exhibition 
for  a  sixpence  at  Holyrood  House  ;  that  she  gave  her 
love  to  Bothwell  before  blowing  Darnley  out  of  life, 
and  married  him  out  of  hand  when  that  horrid  work 
was  accomplished :  all  this  on  one  side.  And  that  she 
was  a  most  refined  and  scholarly  lady,  so  devoutly 
pious  withal  that  she  could  write  "  O  Domine  Deus ! 
speravi  in  Te,"  and  must  have  going  on  about  her  the 
perpetual  offices  of  religion,  on  the  other  side ;  and 
who  can  tell  us  the  truth?  And  who  knows  what 
were  her  relations  with  Elizabeth,  and  her  designs 
upon  the  British  throne  ?  It  is  all  one  of  the  insoluble 
puzzles  of  history. 

But  now,  her  relations  with  Knox.  Knox  is  now,  at 
her  coming  home,  the  pastor  of  Edinburgh  ;  in  fact,  as 
truly  Archbishop  of  Scotland  as  ever  Beaton  had 
been  of  St.  Andrews  in  his  proudest,  lordliest  days. 
Mary's  first  act  upon  coining  into  the  realm  had  been, 


MIGHT  OR   RIGHT?  203 

in  contravention  of  the  well-known  act  of  Parliament, 
and  in  spite  of  the  well-known  temper  of  the  nation, 
an  act  of  bold  defiance,  in  setting  up  the  mass  at 
Holyrood.  It  would  have  been  more  gracious,  to  say 
the  least,  had  she  asked  for  some  consultation,  or  in 
some  way  sought  for  accommodation.  It  was  doubtful 
in  the  then  temper  of  the  people,  after  ages  of  out- 
rage, to  be  sure,  whether  any  arrangement  could  have 
been  made.  It  would,  at  least,  have  propitiated  them, 
and  the  regard  thus  shown  for  the  popular  feeling 
would  have  won  for  her  strength  which  she  greatly 
needed.  Of  course  there  was  a  blast  at  once  from  the 
pulpit  of  old  St.  Giles'  Church,  which  was  a  throne 
at  that  hour  more  powerful  than  that  at  Holyrood. 
Mary  is  indignant  at  what  she  thinks  the  reformer's 
coarse  handling  of  the  affair,  and  summons  him  at 
once  to  the  palace.  The  picture  is  one  that  has  been 
often  drawn  by  the  muse  of  history  and  her  sister  of 
romance.  Mary  in  tears,  and  Knox  calm,  unmoved, 
and  with  a  sternness  upon  his  face  that  reminds  one 
of  John  the  Baptist  in  the  presence  of  the  king  whom 
he  had  dared  to  rebuke.  Of  course  there  can  be  no 
coalescence  of  feeling,  no  sympathy  of  either  for  the 
other.  Mary  and  Knox  are  not  two  private  characters 
in  this  matter,  whose  personal  rights  and  privileges 
are  at  stake.  Each  is  the  embodiment  of  a  principle. 
Mary  says,  "  Might  is  right."  Knox  insists  that 
"  Right  is  might,"  and  sooner  or  later  they  two  and 
all  the  world  find  it  so.  And  yet  there  is  every  rea- 
son to  believe  that  Knox,  if  he  could  have  done  so, 
would  have  yielded  somewhat  to  Mary's  tears.  He 
is  not  steel  all  through.  He  does  not  like  to  see  the 
woman  weep.  He  feels  that  he  is  getting  to  be  an 
old  man  and  she  is  but  a  girl.  He  tells  her  that  he 


204  KNOX. 

takes  no  delight  in  any  one's  distress;  that  he  can 
hardly  bear  to  see  his  own  boys  weep  when  corrected 
for  their  faults ;  but  that  since  he  had  only  discharged 
his  duty  he  was  constrained,  though  unwillingly,  to 
sustain  her  majesty's  tears  rather  than  hurt  his  con- 
science and  betray  the  commonwealth  through  his  si- 
lence.1 

In  all  the  interviews  between  the  queen  and  the 
reformer,  and  there  are  six  of  them  narrated  by  him- 
self, there  does  not  seem  to  be  any  real  rudeness  on 
the  part  of  Knox.  It  is  sheer  manliness  all  through, 
and  loyalty,  not  first  to  his  queen  to  be  sure,  of  course 
not,  but  loyalty  to  God  and  the  great  Scottish  nation, 
at  the  head  and  heart  of  whose  true  interests  God  has 
placed  him.  Her  language  indeed  is  the  more  rude. 
"  Who  are  you  that  presume  to  school  the  nobles  and 
sovereign  of  this  realm  ?  "  "  Madame,  a  subject  born 
within  the  same."  2 

There  is  little  more  that  can  be  told  within  my  pres- 
ent limits,  of  Knox's  connection  with  the  Scottish 
revolution.  I  must  commend  my  readers  to  the  quaint 
and  racy  pages  of  his  own  inimitable  "  History." 
He  is  the  real  king  in  Edinburgh,  and  in  Scotland, 
preaching  on,  week  after  week,  in  old  St.  Giles',  whose 
stern  and  unadorned  grandeur,  as  it  rises  with  its 
imperial  crown  high  above  the  old  town  to-day,  is 
the  best  illustration  of  his  character.  Crowds,  three 
thousand  at  a  time,  press  within  its  walls  to  hear  his 
burning  words,  whose  fire  does  not  dim  with  the 
growing  age  and  bodily  weakness  of  the  man.  The 
English  ambassador  writes  to  Cecil:  '* Where  your 

1  Knox,  History  of  the  Reformation  in  Scotland,  vol.  ii.,  389. 
Wodrow  Society's  ed. 
3  Ibid. 


ST.   BARTHOLOMEW.  205 

honor  exhorteth  us  to  stoutness,  I  assure  you  the  voice 
of  one  man  is  able  in  an  hour  to  put  more  life  in  us 
than  six  hundred  trumpets  continually  blustering  in 
our  ears." 

With  varying  fortunes  of  some  small  ebb  and  flow 
the  Reformation  goes  on,  until  Mary  marries  Bothwell 
and  is  compelled  to  abdicate  in  favor  of  her  son,  and 
the  good  Murray  is  made  regent.  At  length  the 
throne  in  St.  Giles  and  the  throne  at  Holyrood  are  in 
complete  accord.  It  seems  as  if  the  old  man  were  to 
be  permitted  to  see  the  completion  of  his  work ;  but 
suddenly  Murray  is  assassinated,  and  his  friend,  worn 
out  already  with  labors  out  of  number  and  out  of 
measure,  is  prostrated  by  this  grief  in  a  sickness  from 
which  he  never  recovers. 

Almost  his  last  public  service  is  a  complete  vindica- 
tion from  all  those  charges  of  rudeness,  indelicacy,  and 
injustice  which  have  been  so  liberally  showered  upon 
him  for  three  hundred  years.  Over  from  France  come 
those  thrilling  echoes  of  Catherine  de  Medicis'  mid- 
night bell,  and  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew. 
This  is  the  work  of  the  bloody  Guises.  For  this  they 
have  been  scheming  over  yonder  there  in  France. 
With  these  fiendish  plotters  the  lovely  Queen  of  Scots 
is  in  league  until  death.  That  tolling  might  have 
been  heard  from  St.  Giles'  tower  but  for  John  Knox. 
And  bitter  and  grievous  as  the  disastrous  tidings  must 
have  been  to  the  faithful  old  man,  we  are  glad  that  he 
was  spared  long  enough  to  creep  up  the  High  Street 
and  into  his  pulpit,  to  breathe  out  what  was  at  once 
the  expression  of  his  indignation  and  a  perfect  vindi- 
cation of  his  life-long  and  far  too  thankless  conflict. 


IX. 

CALVIN. 
A.  D.  1509-1564. 

WHILE  laboring  for  the  destruction  of  absolute  power  in  the  spiritual 
order,  the  religious  revolution  of  the  sixteenth  century  was  not  aware  of 
the  true  principles  of  intellectual  liberty.  It  emancipated  the  human 
mind,  and  yet  pretended  still  to  govern  it  by  laws.  In  point  of  fact,  it 
produced  the  prevalence  of  free  inquiry;  in  point  of  principle,  it  believed 
that  it  was  substituting  a  legitimate  for  an  illegitimate  power.  It  had  not 
looked  up  to  the  primary  motive,  nor  down  to  the  ultimate  consequences  of 
its  own  work.  It  thus  fell  into  a  double  error.  On  the  one  side,  it  did  not 
know  or  respect  all  the  rights  of  human  thought;  at  the  very  moment  that 
it  was  demanding  these  rights  for  itself,  it  was  violating  them  towards 
others.  On  the  other  side,  it  was  unable  to  estimate  the  rights  of  authority 
in  matters  of  reason.  I  do  not  speak  of  that  coercive  authority  which 
ought  to  have  no  rights  at  all  in  such  matters,  but  of  that  kind  of  authority 
which  is  purely  moral,  and  acts  sole.ly  by  its  influence  upon  the  mind.  — 
GUIZOT,  History  of  Ciiilization.  Lect.  xii. 


IX. 

CALVIN. 
A.  D.  1509-1564. 

THERE  are  certain  great  rivers  which  send  their 
waters  out  into  the  sea  with  such  force  and  volume 
that  they  continue  for  many  leagues  from  their  mouths 
unmixed  and  clearly  distinguishable  from  the  flood 
around  them.  They  flow  on  as  rivers  still,  preserving 
their  integrity,  their  freshness,  and  even  their  color, 
though  their  banks  are  no  longer  of  earth  or  of  rock, 
but  only  of  yielding  water,  like  themselves.  The 
great  ocean  of  human  thought  and  life  is  continually 
replenished  by  streams  of  personal  influence.  Each 
thinker,  discoverer,  actor,  brings  into  the  world's  work 
his  individual  contribution,  which  is  soon  swallowed 
up.  It  has  its  own  proper  effect,  no  doubt,  upon  the 
quality  of  the  great  whole,  but  it  speedily  becomes 
untraceable  as  a  distinct  and  personal  force.  Litera- 
ture, law,  science,  art,  are,  for  the  most  part,  aggrega- 
tions of  impersonal  energy,  which  it  is  impossible  now 
to  analyze  and  redistribute  to  their  several  sources. 
But  in  all  departments  of  the  world's  history  there 
are  some  men,  like  the  Amazon,  whose  work  refuses 
to  be  speedily  absorbed  and  assimilated.  After  they 
have  poured  themselves  into  the  world's  common  treas- 
ury of  thought  and  experience,  they  remain  still  what 
they  were  before.  So  strong,  and  vigorous,  and  force- 

14 


210  CALVIN. 

ful  are  they  that  their  personality  abides.  Such  men 
are  Coke  and  Blackstone  in  law,  Shakespeare  in  let- 
ters, Bacon  in  science,  Michael  Angelo  in  art.  The 
cessation  of  visible  life  in  each  of  these  cases  has 
made  no  difference  in  the  integrity  of  force  and  in- 
fluence. 

And  such  a  man  is  Calvin  in  theology,  a  man  whose 
influence  is  as  personal  and  sharply  defined  after  three 
centuries  have  passed  over  his  grave,  as  when  he  made 
his  first  contribution  to  the  world's  religious  thought. 

This  figure  which  I  have  used  —  of  a  mighty  river 
which  shoots  its  flood  far  out  into  the  sea  —  is  capable 
of  a  further  expansion.  If  we  seek  for  the  reason  why 
the  man's  influence  so  long  survives  himself,  we  need 
not  go  far  to  find  it.  He  gathered  up  the  spiritual 
and  intellectual  forces  that  had  been  started  by  the 
reformation  movement,  and  marshaled  and  systema- 
tized them,  and  bound  them  into  unity  by  the  mastery 
of  his  logical  thought ;  as  the  river  gathers  cloud  and 
rill,  and  snow-drift  and  dew-fall,  and  constrains  them 
through  its  own  channel  into  the  unity  and  directness 
of  a  powerful  current.  The  action  of  Luther  was 
impulsive,  magnetic,  popular,  appealing  to  sentiment 
and  feeling ;  that  of  Calvin  was  logical  and  construc- 
tive, appealing  to  understanding  and  reason.  He  was 
the  systematizer  of  the  Reformation.  Melancthon,  to 
be  sure,  essayed  something  in  the  same  direction,  as 
we  have  already  seen ;  but  his  Augsburg  Confession, 
compared  with  Calvin's  "  Institutes,"  is  as  a  log-hut 
of  the  backwoods  compared  with  a  military  fortress. 
Luther's  work  was  national ;  so  was  Latimer's ;  so  was 
Knox's.  Calvin's  work  was  national,  and  more ;  he 
gave  to  the  Reformation  a  universality  like  that  of 
the  gigantic  system  with  which  they  all  were  at  war. 


THE  PROTESTANT  POPE.  211 

Calvin,  more  than  any  other  man  that  has  ever  lived, 
deserves  to  be  called  the  Pope  of  Protestantism. 
While  he  was  still  living  his  opinions  were  deferred 
to  by  kings  and  prelates,  and  even  after  he  was  dead 
his  power  was  confessed  by  his  enemies.  The  papists 
called  his  "  Institutes  "  the  "  Heretics'  Koran."  Thirty 
years  after  his  death,  Cardinal  Alexander  de  Medicis, 
afterwards  Pope  Leo  XI.,  while  on  a  journey,  turned 
aside  with  his  whole  retinue,  got  down  from  his  litter, 
and  went  on  foot  to  see  the  cottage  in  which  he  had 
been  told  John  Calvin  was  born.1  Not  a  few,  even  at 
this  day,  accord  to  him  the  attribute  of  infallibility. 
He  set  up  authority  against  authority,  and  maintained 
and  perpetuated  what  he  set  up  by  the  inherent  clear- 
ness and  energy  and  vigor  of  his  own  mental  concep- 
tions. The  authority  of  the  Romish  Pope  was  based 
upon  the  venerable  tradition  of  the  past  that  had 
grown  up  by  the  accretion  of  ages ;  the  authority  of 
the  Protestant  Pope  rested  upon  a  logical  structure 
which  he  himself  b'uilt  up,  out  of  blocks  hewn  from 
alleged  Scripture  assertion  and  legitimate  inferences 
therefrom.  The  authority  of  the  Romish  Pope  was 
not  unlike  that  image  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  dream, 
whose  brightness  was  excellent,  and  the  form  thereof 
terrible,  with  its  head  of  fine  gold,  its  breast  and  arms 
of  silver,  its  belly  and  thighs  of  brass,  its  legs  of  iron, 
and  its  feet  part  of  iron  and  part  of  clay;  without 
homogeneousness  and  without  consistency.  The  au- 
thority of  the  Protestant  Pope  was  both  homogeneous 
and  consistent,  but  it  was  a  skeleton  rather  than  an 
image.  He  put  the  Bible  into  his  crucible  and  set 
under  it  the  fires  of  his  pure,  logical  processes,  until 
he  had  consumed  from  it  all  the  graces  of  imagina- 
1  Guizot,  St.  Louis  and  Calvin,  p.  156. 


212  CALVIN. 

tion,  all  the  soft  and  flowing  garniture  of  fancy  and 
of  feeling,  and  turned  it  out  a  system,  a  skeleton, 
showing  admirable  proportions  and  nice  articulation, 
but  its  living  tissues  destroyed  and  its  fresh  color 
gone. 

Let  no  one  suppose  that  I  shall  fall  into  the  cheap 
fashion  of  the  hour,  of  sneering  at  Calvin  or  of  de- 
preciating his  work.  The  man  himself  is  one  of  the 
wonders  of  all  time,  and  his  work  was  admirable, 
beyond  any  words  of  appreciation  that  it  is  possible 
for  me  to  utter.  For  while  he  himself  tolerated  no  dif- 
ferences of  theological  opinion,  and  would  have  bound 
all  thought  by  his  own  logical  chain,  this  nineteenth 
century  is  as  much  indebted  to  his  work  as  it  is  to  that 
of  Luther.  That  work  constituted  the  world's  larg- 
est step  towards  democratic  freedom.  It  set  the  in- 
dividual man  in  the  presence  of  the  living  God,  and 
made  the  solitary  soul,  whether  of  prince  or  pauper, 
to  feel  its  responsibility  to,  and  dependence  upon, 
Him  alone  who  from  eternity  has  decreed  the  spar- 
row's flight  or  fall.  Out  of  this  logical  conception  of 
the  equality  of  all  men  in  the  presence  of  Jehovah,  he 
deduced  the  true  republican  character  of  the  Church ; 
a  theory  to  which  all  Americans,  and  especially  we  of 
New  England,  owe  our  rich  inheritance.  He  gave  to 
the  world,  what  it  had  not  before,  a  majestic  and  con- 
sistent conception  of  a  kingdom  of  God  ruling  in  the 
affairs  of  men  ;  of  the  beauty  and  the  blessedness  of 
a  true  Christian  state ;  of  the  possibility  of  the  city 
of  God  being  one  day  realized  in  the  universal  sub- 
ordination of  human  souls  to  divine  authority. 

The  name  of  Calvin  is  as  indissolubly  associated 
with  the  history  of  Geneva  as  is  Savonarola  with  that 
of  Florence,  or  Hus  with  that  of  Prague.  It  will  be 


GENEVA   PRIOR    TO   CALVIN'S  ADVENT.    213 

necessary,  therefore,  to  an  understanding  of  his  work, 
to  glance  at  the  condition  of  affairs  in  Geneva  in  the 
earlier  part  of  the  sixteenth  century.  During  the 
first  quarter  of  the  century,  i.  e.,  while  Calvin  was 
boy  and  youth,  Geneva  was  in  a  condition  of  anarchy, 
the  causes  of  which  lay  far  in  the  past.  To  go  no 
farther  back,  however,  than  the  period  just  preceding 
the  reformer's  birth,  in  1504,  Charles  III.,  Duke  of 
Savoy,  entered  into  a  struggle  for  the  subjugation  of 
Geneva,  which  lasted  for  twenty  years.  Finding  that 
he  could  accomplish  nothing  by  wily  plots  with  the 
citizens  themselves,  he  procured,  through  the  Pope, 
Leo  X.,  the  appointment  of  a  scion  of  his  own  house 
(Savoy)  as  bishop,  upon  condition  that  the  bishop 
should  give  the  control  of  the  city,  so  far  as  civil 
affairs  were  concerned,  into  the  hands  of  the  duke. 
This  resulted  in  a  rebellion  on  the  part  of  the  citizens, 
which  ultimately  became  a  revolution,  and  liberated 
the  city  from  the  Savoy  control,  and  put  the  power, 
civil  and  military,  into  the  hands  of  the  citizens.  Of 
course,  there  were  two  parties  among  the  citizens 
themselves,  —  a  popular  and  a  ducal,  or  a  republican 
and  a  Savoyard  party.  Nicknames  were  bandied  to 
and  fro,  as  in  all  such  conflicts ;  and  we  come  here, 
for  the  first  time,  upon  one  of  those  terms,  which,  being 
originally  applied  in  contempt,  become  in  time  badges 
of  high  honor  and  moral  nobility.  The  ducal  party, 
whose  recklessness  and  licentiousness  made  them  des- 
picable in  the  eyes  of  the  quiet  and  more  respectable 
people,  were  called  Mamelukes.  The  opponents  of 
the  duke,  who  were  in  favor  of  forming  a  compact 
with  the  Swiss,  were  termed  Confederates,  eidgenossen, 
afterwards  corrupted  into  huguenots.  The  eidgenos- 
sen,  or  citizen  party,  were  successful,  and  the  duke 


214  CALVIN. 

and  his  family  bishop  were  thrown  out.  So  far,  it  was 
simply  a  civil  revolution.  In  fact,  neither  one  party 
nor  the  other  cared  much  for  any  religious  reform. 

But  about  this  time  there  came  to  Geneva  a  young 
Frenchman,  William  Farel,  preaching  the  doctrines 
of  religious  liberty  promulgated  by  the  German  re- 
formers, and  showing  up  the  vices,  superstitions,  and 
idolatries  of  the  Romish  Church,  —  a  man  of  great  zeal 
and  intrepidity,  utterly  fearless,  and  of  unbounded  en- 
thusiasm, preaching  at  all  times  and  in  all  places,  in 
town  or  in  field,  regardless  of  his  life,  and  frequently 
hazarding  it  in  the  boldness  of  his  denunciations  ;  a 
man  who  knew  how  to  kindle  a  flame  of  popular  feel- 
ing, but  without  the  power  to  organize  or  control  it. 
By  order  of  the  council,  a  public  disputation  was  held, 
at  which  Farel  challenged  any  one  to  discuss  with  him 
the  subjects  in  debate  between  the  Church  of  Rome 
and  the  reformers.  The  result  of  the  discussion  was 
a  sudden  and  almost  volcanic  religious  revolution. 
The  people,  demoralized  by  their  civil  disturbances, 
impulsive  and  impetuous,  impatient  of  restraint,  car- 
ried away  in  part  by  the  sense  of  freedom  already 
gained  in  political  affairs,  rushed  to  the  churches,  de- 
stroyed the  relics,  overthrew  the  altars,  and  then  by 
act  of  council  abolished  the  Romish  religion  and  de- 
clared Protestantism  established  in  its  place.  But  no 
act  of  council  or  Parliament  or  congress  can  make  a 
people  religious.  The  forces  which  had  been  set  free 
by  Farel,  and  the  liberty  which  had  been  proclaimed 
by  edict,  needed  to  be  organized,  controlled,  and  di- 
rected, and  Farel  felt  his  helplessness. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  affairs  when  Calvin  sud- 
denly appeared  in  Geneva,  coming  into  the  city  as  a 
stranger,  and  intending  to  tarry  but  a  night,  but  des- 


"THE  FATHER   OF   THE  MAN."  215 

lined  to  be  for  thirty  years  its  most  conspicuous  citi- 
zen, and  forevermore  identified  with  its  history.  And 
who  was  Calvin  ? 

John  Calvin  was  a  Frenchman,  born  in  Noyon,  Pic- 
ardy,  July  10,  1509,  four  or  five  years  after  the  Savoy- 
ard struggle  began  in  Geneva.  Unlike  most  of  the 
characters  which  we  have  passed  under  review,  his 
childhood  was  spent  in  circumstances  of  great  comfort, 
not  to  say  of  affluence.  His  father  was  a  man  of  in- 
fluence in  church  and  state,  and  by  his  official  rela- 
tions was  able  to  open  at  once  to  his  son  the  avenues 
of  preferment.  He  was  placed  for  his  early  tuition 
in  a  noble  family,  to  be  educated  with  their  children. 
That  abundant  means  might  not  be  wanting  during 
his  career  as  a  student,  when  he  was  only  thirteen 
years  old,  his  father  procured  for  him  a  presentation 
to  an  ecclesiastical  benefice,  and  still  another  when  he 
was  eighteen,  though  he  never  was  ordained  according 
to  the  rites  of  the  Church.  In  regard  to  these  early 
benefices  two  things  are  noticeable  as  indicating  the 
clear  integrity  and  crystalline  firmness  of  his  charac- 
ter. One  is,  that,  being  educated  thus  with  abundance 
of  worldly  resources  at  his  command,  placed  in  entire 
independence  at  thirteen  years  of  age,  he  did  not  be- 
come soft  and  effeminate  ;  that  his  energies  did  not 
evaporate  in  indolence  and  self-indulgence  ;  that  his 
moral  fibre  did  not  become  flaccid ;  that  his  mental 
power  maintained  from  first  to  last  its  fine,  hard  grain 
and  temper.  And  the  other  notable  thing  is,  that 
when  the  definite  course  of  his  life  was  settled  in  his 
own  mind,  he  resigned  his  benefices,  though  the  resig- 
nation left  him  poor,  and  poor  he  remained  to  the  end 
of  his  life.  Not  that  there  was  any  superfluous  hon- 
esty in  the  act,  but  it  was  out  of  keeping  entirely  with 


216  CALVIN. 

the  ecclesiastical  morals  of  the  time.  I  said  that  he 
did  not  become  soft.  On  the  contrary,  during  these 
early  years  at  Paris,  at  first  under  the  famous  Corde- 
rius,  and  then  under  a  learned  Spaniard  who  was  also 
the  instructor  of  Loyola,  he  was  rigorously  abstinent 
in  his  living  and  most  ardent  in  his  studies.  He  was 
a  reformer  in  spirit  before  he  was  through  with  his 
Latin  Grammar,  so  out  of  sympathy  with  even  the  in- 
nocent frivolities  of  boyhood  that  his  fellows  nick- 
named him  the  "  Accusative  Case.''  He  seems  to 
have  had  a  marvelous  acuteness  and  power  of  mental 
mastery  from  the  outset.  He  saw  through  things  from 
their  roots  to  their  ramifications  without  effort,  a  very 
incarnation  of  logic.  Of  such  a  penetrating  genius 
himself,  he  had  no  patience  with  stupidity,  and  little 
forbearance  with  those  who  saw  differently.  This, 
along  with  that  low  living  which,  however  favorable  to 
high  thinking,  wastes  the  physical  energy  and  makes 
the  nerves  sensitive  and  intolerant,  gained  for  him  the 
reputation  of  censoriousness.  His  face  was  thin,  the 
features  pinched,  his  eye  unearthly  in  its  keenness, 
his  frame  wasted,  his  intellect  a  Damascus  blade 
sheathed  in  too  frail  a  scabbard,  an  electric  light  in- 
closed in  a  shade  of  too  little  opacity. 

For  ten  years  he  gave  himself  to  language  and  logic 
and  philosophy,  a  severe  and  unsparing  discipline, 
which  made  him  the  prince  of  reasoners  and  the  per- 
fect master  of  Latin  elegance  and  terseness  that  he 
was.  Never  was  man  clearer  in  the  apprehension  of 
his  own  thought,  or  more  precise  in  its  expression. 
One  of  his  chapters  is  like  a  web  of  chain-mail. 

At  this  time  two  events  occurred  which  turned  him 
for  a  while  into  a  different  course.  His  father  had 
a  quarrel  with  some  of  his  ecclesiastical  friends,  and 


A    LAW  STUDENT.  217 

thought  that  the  law  offered  better  opportunities  for 
his  son's  promotion  than  the  priesthood,  and  Calvin 
himself  began  to  think  less  of  an  ecclesiastical  career 
through  some  studies  which  he  had  been  making  in 
the  Bible.  To  Orleans,  therefore,  he  now  betook  him- 
self for  the  study  of  the  law.  It  had  not  the  same 
fascination  for  him  as  his  previous  studies,  neverthe- 
less he  gave  himself  to  it  with  the  same  energy  and 
with  the  same  distinguished  success,  at  the  same  time 
sitting  up  half  the  night  and  often  living  upon  one 
meal  a  day  that  he  might  keep  up  the  studies  which 
he  was  unwilling  to  drop.  His  knowledge  of  juris- 
prudence was  soon  so  comprehensive  and  profound 
that  the  professors  frequently  called  upon  him  to  take 
their  duty  in  the  lecture-room.  There  was  no  position 
in  the  legal  profession,  it  is  said,  to  which  he  might 
not  have  aspired,  and  in  his  twenty-fourth  year  the 
university  bestowed  upon  him  the  doctorate  without 
fees,  as  a  compliment  to  his  legal  acquirements. 

It  must  have  been  while  he  was  here  at  Orleans  that 
the  great  change  occurred  which  marked  the  begin- 
ning of  his  spiritual  life,  and  which  led  him  to  take 
the  side  of  the  reformation  party.  We  do  not  know 
much  about  it.  There  is  only  a  hint  given  incidentally 
in  the  Preface  to  his  "  Commentary  on  the  Psalms." 
He  was  always  reticent  concerning  his  spiritual  expe- 
riences, but  he  speaks  there  in  few  but  very  significant 
words  of  his  "  sudden  conversion."  "  I  became  con- 
scious of  my  wretchedness,"  he  says ;  "  and  there  was 
nothing  left  for  me  but  with  tears  and  cries  of  suppli- 
cation to  abjure  the  old  life,  which  Thou,  O  Lord, 
hast  condemned,  and  to  flee  into  thy  path."  Of  this 
change  he  says,  "  God  himself  suddenly  produced  it. 
He  instantly  subdued  my  heart  to  the  obedience  of 
his  will." 


218  CALVIN. 

Meagre  as  is  the  information  which  Calvin  has  given 
us  concerning  this  crisis  in  his  experience,  I  think  we 
may  find  in  it  the  key  not  only  of  his  subsequent  life, 
but  of  his  theological  system.  It  bears  a  resemblance 
sufficiently  close  to  the  analogous  experience  of  Au- 
gustine to  account  for  the  general  likeness  which  exists 
between  their  systems  of  logical  thought.  Calvin 
found  himself  suddenly  seized  in  the  grip  of  an  irre- 
sistible power,  and  was  consciously  as  clay  in  the  hand 
of  a  potter.  With  the  attribute  of  power  his  system 
begins.  He  sees  power  working  to  an  end ;  intel- 
ligent, therefore  involving  foreknowledge.  But  in 
knowledge  there  can  be  no  element  of  contingency  or 
uncertainty.  The  movements  of  the  universe,  there- 
fore, from  star  to  atom,  are  constrained  within  ada- 
mantine lines  of  predestined  order.  That  saving  grasp 
had  laid  hold  upon  his  life  in  the  execution  of  an  eter- 
nal decree.  A  decree  equally  inevitable  necessitated 
the  perdition  of  his  neighbor.  The  holy  are  holy,  and 
the  sinful  are  sinful,  alike  by  the  ordination  of  God, 
and  for  his  mere  good  pleasure.  On  this  iron  path- 
way of  deduction  Calvin  walks  with  a  step  that  is  firm, 
fearless,  unflinching.  Within  its  lines  he  compels  all 
facts ;  to  its  demands  he  conforms  all  Scripture.  In 
his  deductive  method  he  seems  consciously  to  possess 
an  instrument  which  is  applicable  alike  to  temporals 
and  eternals.  He  never  thinks  of  making  an  induc- 
tion. He  has  no  idea  of  asking  whether  or  no  God 
may  not  be  revealing  himself  in  life  and  experience, 
and  history  and  institutions ;  and  if  so,  whether  it 
might  not  be  well  to  balance  and  modify  the  process 
of  reasoning  downward  by  reasoning  sometimes  in 
the  contrary  direction.  One  can  scarcely  avoid  the 
thought,  while  following  him,  that  he  is  making  Scrip- 


INFLUENCE  AT  PARIS.  219 

ture  ancillary  to  his  logic,  instead  of  humbling  his 
logic  to  the  service  of  Scripture. 

His  law  studies  were  now  finished,  and  his  father 
having  died,  he  felt  free  to  pursue  his  literary  inclina- 
tions, and  returned  to  Paris.  He  seems  to  have  con- 
templated nothing  more  than  the  quiet,  modest,  studi- 
ous life  of  a  man  of  letters.  But  the  man  could  not 
be  hid.  His  immense  erudition,  and  his  distinguished 
career  as  a  student  of  law,  had  already  made  him 
widely  known.  He  had  already  been  consulted,  along 
with  other  continental  scholars,  concerning  the  validity 
of  Henry  VIII.'s  marriage  with  Katherine.1  The 
new  doctrines  were  rife  among  the  students  of  the 
French  capital,  and  the  only  place  where  a  man  of  his 
clear  vision  and  new  experience  could  stand  was  with 
the  reformers.  He  became,  by  mere  force  of  personal 
character  and  attainments,  and  without  intent  on  his 
own  part,  their  guide  in  thought  and  study,  and  their 
spiritual  counselor.  They  crowded  upon  him  in  his 
retirement,  so  that,  as  he  says,  "  My  solitary  place 
became  like  a  public  school."  But  the  reforming 
interest  was  weak  as  yet  in  France,  and  at  this  time 
was  undergoing  great  persecution ;  and  on  account 
of  an  act  which,  perhaps,  evinced  greater  zeal  than 
prudence  on  Calvin's  part,  he  was  speedily  obliged  to 
flee  from  Paris  for  his  life.  One  of  his  friends  was 
made  rector  of  the  university,  and  Calvin  wrote  for 
him  his  inaugural  address.  Instead  of  taking  some 
literary  or  scholastic  theme,  he  made  it  a  vigorous 
defense  of  the  reformed  doctrine,  especially  justifica- 

1  In  1530,  when  twenty-one  years  of  age,  he  wrote  a  letter 
upon  the  royal  divorce,  giving  his  opinion  in  favor  of  it,  on  the 
ground  that  the  marriage  was  illegal  as  being  within  the  degrees 
prohibited  by  Scripture.  —  Burnet,  Hist.  Ref. 


220  CALVIN. 

tion  by  faith ;  and  so  great  was  the  wrath  it  aroused 
among  the  Sorbonists  that  both  the  author  and  the 
speaker  were  compelled  to  escape  as  best  they  could. 
Then  follow  two  or  three  years  of  wandering,  to  Basle, 
to  Saintonge,  to  Noyon,  and  finally  into  Italy ;  during 
which  period,  nevertheless,  he  accomplishes  a  work 
which  makes  an  epoch  in  theology,  and  for  which  he 
has  been  called  "  The  Aristotle  of  the  Reformation." 
"  The  Institutes  of  the  Christian  Religion  "  was  called 
out  in  response  to  a  royal  calumny.  Francis  I.,  who 
was  at  this  time  persecuting  violently  the  reformers 
of  France,  but  who  was  desirous,  while  crushing  the 
new  doctrines,"  to  keep  on  good  terms  with  the  reform- 
ing princes  of  Germany,  gave  out  that  his  endeavors 
were  directed  against  certain  fanatics  and  subverters 
of  social  order  like  the  Anabaptists.  And  Calvin 
simply  undertakes  to  repel  the  mean  aspersion.  He 
has  no  thought  of  writing  anything  new  or  strange, 
anything  original  even.  He  simply  undertakes  to  tell 
what  the  true  Christian  faith  is  now,  what  it  was  in 
the  beginning,  what  it  has  always  been.  It  is  not 
peculiar  to  the  reformers.  He  -simply  professes  to 
gather  up  the  truths  which  Christians  of  all  ages 
had  held,  Augustine  and  Remigius,  and  Anselm  and 
Luther.  He  binds  them  together  in  the  adamantine 
chains  of  his  logic,  shows  their  consistency  and  corre- 
lation, and  then  dedicates  it  to  his  majesty  Francis  I. 
"  This,  your  majesty,  is  what  the  reformers  believe, 
whom  you  are  persecuting,  and  we  leave  it  now  to 
your  majesty,  and  to  all  the  world,  to  say,  whether 
we  are  Anabaptists  and  communists  and  rioters,  or 
whether  we  are  members  of  the  true  Church  Catholic 
of  all  time." 

A  marvelous  work,  view  it  in  what  aspect  we  will ! 


PREDESTINATED  AND   CALLED.  221 

Written  by  a  young  man  twenty-five  years  of  age,  in 
an  interval  of  his  flit  tings  as  a  proscribed  wanderer; 
covering  the  whole  ground  of  revealed  truth,  nothing 
wanting  and  nothing  redundant ;  a  system  to  which, 
during  the  remainder  of  his  life,  he  added  nothing, 
and  from  which  he  took  nothing  of  material  import; 
a  system  as  compact,  consistent,  lucid,  and  unwastiug 
as  a  cube  of  rock-crystal,  and  as  hard  and  cold  as  that. 
After  a  brief  and  stealthy  visit  to  France  for  the 
purpose  of  taking  a  final  farewell  of  his  native  country, 
he  sets  out  for  Basle,  where  he  means  to  settle  himself 
for  a  life  of  retirement  and  study.  His  life  furnishes, 
at  this  point,  a  striking  illustration  of  his  favorite  doc- 
trine of  divine  decrees.  Owing  to  the  disturbed  con- 
dition of  the  country,  he  cannot  get  to  Basle  by  the 
ordinary  route,  and  is  compelled  to  go  around  by 
Geneva.  He  has  arrived  in  the  city  in  the  afternoon 
of  a  summer  day  (1536),  and  goes  to  a  quiet  inn 
intending  to  refresh  himself  with  a  night's  slumber 
and  then  proceed  on  his  journey.  It  is  at  the  time 
when  the  great  preacher  Farel  finds  himself  so  pow- 
erless amid  the  forces  which  he  has  aroused  by  his 
fiery  and  furious  eloquence.  Some  one  has  recognized 
Calvin  and  reports  his  presence  to  Farel,  who  at  once 
calls  upon  him,  and  compels  him,  as  if  by  a  prophet's 
word,  to  change  all  his  plans,  remain  in  Geneva,  and 
help  him  in  his  work.  There  must  have  been  some- 
thing very  awe-inspiring  in  the  man  who  could  sway 
and  bend  to  his  will  such  an  iron  character  as  Calvin's. 
He  resists,  pleads  his  desire  for  study,  his  unfitness, 
but  without  avail.  He  says  that  he  was  struck  with 
terror  by  Farel's  formidable  obtestation,1  and  felt  as 

1  "  I  denounce  you  in  the  name  of  Almighty  God,  and  declare 
that  if  you  pretend  the  love  of  study  in  such  a  case,  you  are 


222  CALVIN. 

if  the  hand  of  the  Almighty  had  been  stretched  out 
from  heaven  and  laid  upon  him,  and  he  was  power- 
less to  resist.  And  so  the  place,  the  hour,  and  the 
man,  by  the  foreknowledge  and  predestination  of  God, 
through  the  instrumentality  of  human  agency,  are 
brought  together. 

The  task  which  confronted  Calvin  at  Geneva  was 
an  arduous  one.  He  had  been  suddenly  seized  and 
thrust  into  a  turbulent  and  stormy  scene  of  social 
forces,  and  bidden  to  quell  and  harmonize  them  and 
set  them  in  orderly  working.  "  He  desired  to  estab- 
lish and  promote  Christian  faith  in  accordance  with 
his  own  views ;  to  secure  to  the  religious  society  which 
had  been  founded  in  virtue  of  that  faith,  on  the  one 
hand  religious  independence  of  state  control,  and  on 
the  other  due  authority  and  power  in  matters  of 
religion  over  its  members  and  faithful  adherents ;  to 
reform  public  and  private  morality  both  in  civil  and 
religious  society,  in  the  name  of  the  allied  powers  of 
church  and  state,  and  by  their  mutual  help.  Such," 
says  the  French  philosopher  Guizot,1  "  was  the  three- 
fold design  which  Calvin  hoped  to  accomplish.  No 
doubt  he  had  not  set  it  very  distinctly  before  him,  nor 
had  he  fully  realized  all  that  it  involved  and  all  its 
difficulties,  but  he  commenced  the  struggle  with  a 
stout  heart  and  a  resolute  mind."  I  question  the  dis- 
tinguished philosopher's  suggestion  that  Calvin's  work 
did  not  lie  very  distinctly  in  his  own  mind.  The  man 
who  had  written  the  "  Institutes  "  at  twenty-five,  and 
never  was  known  to  waver  or  hesitate  in  anything  else 

seeking  your  own  things  and  not  the  things  of  Christ  unless  you 
become  our  fellow-laborer  in  this  cause,"  were  the  impetuous 
words  of  Farel."  —  Beza,  Jo.  Calv.  Vita. 
1  St.  Louis  and  Calvin,  pp.  216,  217. 


A    CITY'S   CREED.  223 

through  indistinct  mental  vision,  knew  from  the  first 
what  he  wanted  to  do,  and  how  to  proceed  in  doing  it. 
He  meant  to  establish  in  Geneva  a  province  of  the 
kingdom  of  God.     So  far  as  it  was  possible  for  him  to 
get  a  controlling  hand  upon  the  affairs  of  the  church 
and  the  state,  he  meant  to  govern  both  by  the  prin- 
ciples laid  down  in  the  Bible,  as  he,  Calvin,  understood 
those  principles.     He  was  at  once  appointed  teacher 
of   theology,    and   shortly    afterward   elected   pastor. 
Together  with  Farel  he  drew  up  a  confession  of  faith, 
or  body  of  Christian  belief,  which  was  at  once  adopted 
by  the  city's  representative  council  of  two  hundred, 
and  by  them  ordered  to  be  proclaimed  as  binding  upon 
the  whole  body  of  citizens,  —  a  city  ordinance  in  fact. 
Some  of  these  articles  related  not  only  to  faith,  but  to 
practice,  and  were  very  radical.     One  of  them  related 
to  the  rite  of  excommunication  and  the  limitation  of 
the  privileges  of  the  Lord's  Supper.     These,  together 
with  stringent  regulations  concerning  matters  of  social 
conduct,  some  of  which  were  in  themselves  indifferent, 
were  at  once  put  into  operation,  and  of  course  devel- 
oped violent  opposition.     We  all  know  that  in  nature, 
when   motion  is   suddenly  and   sharply  arrested,  it  is 
converted  into  heat;  if  the  motion  has  been  violent 
and  the  momentum  is  great,  the  heat  is  correspond- 
ingly great.     And  such  was  the  result  when  a  sudden 
and  radical  external  reformation  was  imposed  by  edict 
upon  the  manners  and  morals  of  Geneva.     A  gay  and 
pleasure-loving  people  were  suddenly  arrested  in  the 
practice  of  customs  and  the  indulgence  of  gayeties  to 
which  they  had  long  been  used.     Of  course  such  re- 
pression as  this  caused  a  violent  eruption  of  indig- 
nation.    Many  even  of  those  who  had  been  friends 
of  the  Reformation,  and  who  themselves  were  modest 


224  CALVIN. 

in  demeanor  and  moderate  in  life,  sided  with  those 
who  deemed  their  personal  liberties  violated.  Not 
without  show  of  reason  they  charged  Calvin  and 
Farel  with  the  design  of  establishing  a  new  papacy  ; 
and  the  speedy  result  was  that  Calvin  and  Farel  were 
banished  by  a  counter-edict  from  the  city.  Plainly, 
Geneva  was  not  yet  ready  for  the  rule  of  the  saints. 
So  far  from  it,  it  was  in  danger  of  being  lost  to  the 
reformed  cause  altogether.  The  detent  was  lifted 
as  suddenly  as  it  had  been  imposed  by  the  expansive 
power  of  the  suppressed  and  imprisoned  forces ;  a  les- 
son which  violent  reformers,  it  would  seem,  can  never 
learn  but  by  costly  or  ruinous  experience. 

Things  now  (1538)  became  really  worse  than  ever 
at  Geneva.  Disorder  and  irreligion  grew  riotous; 
licentiousness  and  violence  prevailed  openly  in  the 
streets.  To  make  matters  still  more  hazardous  for  the 
reformed  cause  a  most  wily  and  politic  servant  of  the 
Pope  was  watching  matters  from  a  little  distance  and 
waiting  his  opportunity.  Cardinal  Sadolet  saw  the 
chance  now  of  restoring  the  papal  authority.  He 
writes  a  cautious,  gentle,  flattering  letter  to  the  Gene- 
van senate,  deploring  the  city's  misfortunes,  saying 
not  a  word  in  accusation  of  the  banished  ministers, 
and  softly  exploring  the  probabilities  or  possibilities 
of  the  city's  restoration  to  the  fold  of  the  Old  Church. 
Calvin  has  no  thought  or  desire  to  return  to  Geneva. 
His  time  is  passing  pleasantly  in  the  converse  of  schol- 
ars, —  Bucer  and  Melancthon  and  the  Saxon  theologi- 
ans, —  in  attendance  upon  councils,  in  study  and  writ- 
ing, in  preaching  and  lecturing  in  Strasburg  ;  but  the 
wiles  of  the  cardinal  stir  his  indignation.  Peppery  as 
the  little  man  is,  and  sensitive  as  to  his  banishment, 
he  has  an  honest  Christian  desire  in  his  heart  for  the 


RECALLED.  225 

city's  welfare  and  for  the  peace  of  the  true  reformers 
who  are  living  there.  And  he  writes  an  answer  to 
Sadolet's  feeler,  which  silences  him  forever.  He  re- 
minds us  of  one  of  the  little  monitors  of  modern  war- 
fare, carrying  a  single  gun,  but  swift  and  fierce  and 
infallible,  which  steams  for  a  few  moments  out  from 
its  hiding-place,  and  sinks  the  great  '74  that  disap- 
pears forever.  For  three  years  he  is  a  banished  man, 
and  the  three  years  do  something  for  him  and  more 
for  the  city.  He  marries  in  a  cool,  logical,  business- 
like way  in  the  interval,  and  not  much  is  to  be  said, 
because  he  himself  never  says  much,  of  his  domestic 
relations.  He  never  wears  his  heart  upon  his  sleeve 
for  an  hour,  —  scarcely  puts  it  in  sight.  He  will  not 
take  us  into  his  intimacy  nor  let  us  love  him.  Many 
more  tears  have  been  shed  under  Calvin  than  were  ever 
shed  over  him.  But  Geneva  fares  badly  without  him. 
Their  political  liberty  has  degenerated  to  the  broadest 
license.  There  is  no  moral  or  civil  restraint.  The  very 
syndics 1  themselves  have  proved  powerless  and  worth- 
less. Two  of  them  perish  by  a  violent  death,  the 

1  "  The  sovereign  power  in  Geneva  was  vested  in  a  series  of 
three  Councils  :  First,  The  General  Council,  composed  of  all 
such  citizens  and  burgesses  as  had  reached  the  age  of  twenty-five 
years.  Secondly,  The  Council  of  Two  Hundred,  which  consisted 
of  two  hundred  and  fifty  citizens  or  burgesses,  and  had  its  vacan- 
cies filled  up  as  soon  as  they  amounted  to  fifty.  The  members 
were  required  to  be  thirty  years  of  age,  and  held  office  for  life, 
unless  they  became  bankrupt,  or  were  degraded  at  a  censure 
annually  passed.  This  Council  generally  met  on  the  first  Mon- 
day of  every  month.  Thirdly,  The  Council  of  Twenty  Five.  Its 
members  were  chosen  from  the  Council  of  Two  Hundred,  and 
were  subject  to  the  same  scrutiny  as  the  larger  court.  The 
Syndics  or  magistrates,  four  in  number,  were  selected  annually 
from  the  Council  of  Twenty  Five,  and  were  first  chosen  in  the 
city  about  the  year  1090.  They  continued  in  office  for  a  year, 
15 


226  CALVIN. 

other  two  are  exiled  for  malfeasance.  Three  years  of 
anarchy  and  disorder  have  shown  to  all  the  good  ele- 
ments of  the  city's  population  their  inherent  weakness 
and  inability  to  meet  the  riot  and  disaster  and  lawless- 
ness of  the  time.  A  reactionary  sentiment  has  been 
growing  up  in  Calvin's  favor  His  disinterested  letter 
to  Cardinal  Sadolet,  so  ready,  so  complete,  so  final  in 
its  efficacy,  has  warmed  their  hearts  towards  him.  The 
little  keen-eyed  Frenchman,  of  clear  grit  and  of  iron 
soul,  is  the  man  who  can  bring  order  out  of  chaos  and 
rule  Geneva,  and  they  call  him  back.  Reluctantly  he 
comes,  this  time  to  stay  and  to  rule,  until  twenty-four 
years  later  he  gives  up  his  authority  with  his  life. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Calvin  had  had  a 
double  education,  as  a  theologian  and  a  lawyer,  and 
that  he  had  been  equally  eminent  in  both  depart- 
ments. There  was  the  stuff  in  him  for  two  distinct 
and  thoroughly  furnished  men.  And  yet,  while  he 
was  both  a  theologian  and  a  lawyer,  the  two  characters 
were  merged  and  blended  into  a  perfect  unity.  He 
was  the  most  competent  man  of  his  time  to  be  either 
at  the  head  of  church  or  state,  or  both.  And  in  Ge- 
neva he  was  both.  With  the  greatest  enthusiasm  and 
cordiality  the  structures  of  religion  and  of  government 
were  now  committed  to  his  hands,  and  he  built  them 
into  one  as  the  theologian  and  the  jurist  were  com- 
bined in  his  own  personality.  He  framed  both  the 
ecclesiastical  order  and  the  civil  laws.  He  meant  that 
both  church  and  state,  while  preserving  distinctness  of 
function,  "  should  be  intimately  connected  and  mutu- 
ally cooperative  for  a  common  end, — the  realization  of 
the  kingdom  of  God  in  the  lives  of  the  people.  The 

and  were  not  reeligible  for  four." — Rilliet,  Calvin  and  Servetus, 
iN  ote  by  Translator. 


VARIETY  OF  LABORS.  227 

church  was  to  infuse  a  religious  spirit  into  the  state ; 
the  state  was  to  uphold  and  foster  the  interests  of  the 
church."  The  work  of  religion,  in  the  maintenance  of 
preachers  and  the  instruction  of  the  people  and  the 
training  of  the  children,  must  be  enforced  by  law,  and 
if  necessary  secured  by  the  intervention  of  the  magis- 
trate. Offenses  against  ecclesiastical  order  must  be 
visited  by  civil  penalties,  even  unto  death.  He  draws 
up  the  Great  Code  of  ecclesiastical  and  moral  legisla- 
tion which  is  to  guide  the  ecclesiastical  courts  of  con- 
sistory and  council,  and  the  whole  people  swear  to  it 
in  a  great  assembly.  It  enters  minutely  into  all  the 
affairs  of  life.  It  takes  the  Genevan  in  his  cradle,  and 
does  not  desert  him  till  he  is  in  his  grave.  It  attends 
him  on  his  wedding  day,  and  dictates  the  affairs  of 
his  domestic  life.  It  controls  his  food,  his  dress,  his 
amusements,  his  labor,  the  gifts  he  shall  bestow,  the 
expenses  he  shall  incur,  the  outfit  of  his  christening, 
his  bridal,  and  his  funeral.1 

The  life-long  work  of  administration  upon  which 
Calvin  had  entered  was  enough  to  have  engaged  the 
energies  even  of  such  a  man  as  himself,  had  there  been 
nothing  but  administrative  work  for  him  to  do.  With 
his  genius  for  both  comprehensiveness  and  detail,  he 
watches  and  shapes  the  minutest  legislation,  even  to 
the  watching  the  city  gates,  the  order  of  the  streets, 
the  suppression  of  fires.  At  the  same  time  he  is 
preaching  every  day  every  other  week,  and  three  days 
in  every  week  lecturing  on  theology.  He  must  be 
every  week  in  the  consistory  and  preside  over  its  de- 
liberations. Besides  all  this,  he  writes  commentaries 
upon  the  whole  of  Scripture  —  witness  the  fifty  stout 
volumes  that  bear  his  name  upon  the  shelves  of  our 
1  Tulloch,  Luiker  and  other  Leaders,  p.  206. 


228  CALVIN. 

libraries.  His  correspondence  is  varied  and  unceas- 
ing. "  I  have  not  time,"  he  writes  to  a  friend,  "  to 
look  out  of  my  house  at  the  blessed  sun,  and  if  things 
continue  thus  I  shall  forget  how  it  looks.  When  I 
have  settled  my  usual  business,  I  have  so  many  let- 
ters to  write,  so  many  questions  to  answer,  that  many 
a  night  is  spent  without  any  offering  of  sleep  being 
brought  to  nature."  * 

And  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  Calvin's  trium- 
phant return  and  re  establishment  in  Geneva  insured 
him  a  peaceful  enjoyment  of  his  authority.  The  old 
libertine  forces  were  not  expelled.  There  were  many 
in  Geneva  who  said  that  it  was  better  to  live  in  hell 
with  Beza  than  in  heaven  with  Calvin.  One  can 
scarcely  wonder  even  at  this  grim  preference,  as  he 
reads  of  divers  applications  of  the  reformer's  legisla- 
tion. A  barber  is  arrested  and  imprisoned  for  dress- 
ing a  bride's  hair  in  flowing  tresses,  and  the  bride's 
mother  and  friends,  who  have  aided  and  abetted  the 
barber,  are  treated  in  the  same  manner.  Dancing  and 
card-playing  are  put  under  the  ban  and  made  penal 
offenses;  all  holidays  are  abolished,  except  Sunday. 
"  These  things,"  said  Calvin,  "  are  not  wrong  in  them- 
selves, but  they  have  been  so  abused  that  it  is  the 
wisest  way  to  abrogate  them  altogether."  There  were 
to  be  no  more  feasting  and  revels  at  weddings.  All 
the  lighter  follies  and  amusements  of  society  were  to 
be  abolished.  Of  course  all  the  darker  vices  of  licen- 
tiousness and  debauchery,  and  drunkenness  and  pro- 

1  Among  the  MSS.  of  Calvin  in  the  Library  of  Geneva  is  a 
fasciculus,  with  the  title  :  "  Lettres  par  divers  Rois,  Princes, 
Seigneurs,  et  Dames  pour  consulter  sur  les  cas  de  conscience 
epineaux,  ou  pour  le  remercier  de  ses  ouvrages."  —  Tweedie, 
Calvin  and  Servetus,  p.  45. 


A   ROD   OF  IRON.  229 

fanity,  were  summarily  dealt  with.  The  penalties  were 
severe,  in  many  cases  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  of- 
fenses to  which  they  were  attached.  Parental  author- 
ity was  defended  with  exceeding  rigor:  a  little  girl 
was  beheaded  for  striking  her  mother;  a  boy  who 
only  threatened  the  same  unfilial  act  was  condemned 
to  death.  A  young  child  was  ordered  to  be  whipped 
for  singing  some  silly  words  to  a  Psalm  tune ;  and  a 
man  who,  hearing  an  ass  bray,  said,  "  What  a  fine 
Psalm  he  chants  to  be  sure ! "  was  banished  from  the 
city.  And  so  on.  Calvin  made  the  mistake,  which 
was  not  the  mistake  of  his  age  only,  but  which  has 
been  repeated  again  and  again  by  men  who  suppose 
that  some  temporary  and  stringent  regulations,  im- 
posed upon  a  rude  people  in  far  off  and  ignorant  ages, 
may  be  taken  as  the  divinely  authorized  and  perpetual 
regulations  of  all  human  society ;  who  deem  that  there 
has  been  no  advance  from  Judaism  to  Christianity; 
who  think  that  the  Old  Testament,  equally  with  the 
New,  is  to  be  adopted  and  enforced  as  the  law  of  life. 

Such  a  rule  of  rigid  morals  was  not  to  be  perma- 
nently enforced  without  the  utmost  toil  and  conflict 
and  watchfulness.  To  hold  a  city  of  twenty  thousand 
inhabitants  —  volatile,  restless,  made  up  of  very  diverse 
elements  —  under  the  Mosaic  code,  notwithstanding 
the  palpable  blessings  of  order  and  good  morals,  was  a 
more  than  Herculean  task.  And  Calvin  did  it.  No 
other  man  since  Moses's  day  has  ever  accomplished  it 
on  such  a  scale. 

Apart  from  all  this,  there  is  one  aspect  of  Calvin's 
life  which  looms  upon  us  in  the  retrospect  with  a  lurid 
and  awful  grandeur  which  chills  our  blood  and  makes 
us  wish  that  the  story  might  here  come  to  an  end. 
And  yet  it  was  inevitable  that  he  should  play  his  part 


230  CALVIN. 

in  the  fierce  conflicts  of  his  day  as  a  controversialist. 
As  such,  he  did  a  work  both  good  and  bad,  to  be  for- 
ever praised  and  forever  regretted.  His  peculiar  doc- 
trines of  predestination  and  election  were  challenged 
then  as  they  are  now,  sometimes  seriously,  sometimes 
recklessly  and  maliciously,  sometimes  by  scholars  not 
to  be  ignored,  sometimes  by  fanatics  and  wild  enthu- 
siasts, to  whom  his  best  response  would  have  been 
silence.  His  controversies  with  Bolsec  and  Castellio 
and  Fabri  and  Westphal,  and  especially  with  Bui- 
linger  and  Melancthon,  we  may  pass  by,  but  the  world 
will  still  hold  that  Calvin  burned  Servetus.  Let  me 
tell  the  horrible  story  as  briefly  and  ingenuously  as 
possible. 

Michael  Servetus  was  a  Spaniard,  born  in  the  same 
year  with  Calvin,  1509,  a  physician  of  considerable 
renown,  who  had  achieved  great  success  in  his  profes- 
sion in  France,  who  seems  to  have  anticipated  Harvey 
in  his  conjecture  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  and 
who,  like  many  men  of  large  success,  had  a  large  en- 
dowment of  vanity  and  self-conceit.  With  not  a  very 
well  balanced  mind,  he  proposed  to  himself,  when 
hardly  twenty-one,  the  task  of  reforming  the  world 
upon  the  subject  of  the  Trinity.  Long  years  before 
his  final  conflict  with  Calvin,  he  had  challenged  him, 
while  at  Paris,  to  discuss  the  subject,  and  when  Cal- 
vin appeared  in  readiness,  Servetus  declined  the  en- 
counter. Calvin,  no  doubt,  was  then  disgusted  with 
his  cowardice.  For  twenty  years  now  Servetus  had 
led  a  roving  sort  of  life,  and  during  that  time  had 
been  aspersing  Calvin  as  a  theologian  and  as  a  man. 
Moreover,  he  had  played  the  hypocrite  meantime; 
for,  after  having  published  his  book  concerning  Trin- 
itarian errors,  he  received  the  hospitalities  of  the 


THE    TRIAL.  231 

Archbishop  of  Vienne,  who  befriended  him  as  a  pa- 
tron of  literature,  and  while  with  him  professed  to  be 
a  true  churchman.  For  more  than  twenty  years,  in- 
deed, while  under  the  archbishop's  patronage,  he  con- 
formed to  the  Catholic  Church  and  attended  mass, 
unsuspected  of  heresy  by  his  patron.  And  during 
this  very  time,  under  assumed  names,  he  was  publish- 
ing his  books,  and  even  bribing  the  archbishop's  own 
printer  to  print  them  for  him.  At  length,  through 
evidence  which  was  afforded  by  Calvin,  he  was  discov- 
ered ;  his  hypocrisy  was  detected,  the  archbishop  was 
informed,  and  Servetus  was  arrested  and  put  on  trial. 
He  denied  the  authorship  of  his  books,  swore  he  had 
not  written  on  the  errors  of  the  Trinity,  and  when  the 
documents  from  Calvin  were  put  in  evidence,  and  he 
found  that  conviction  was  inevitable,  he  managed  to 
escape  from  his  jailer,  and  the  court  at  Vienne  was 
compelled  to  be  content  with  burning  his  effigy  and 
seizing  and  confiscating  what  little  property  he  had 
left  behind. 

And  now  what  does  the  poor,  condemned,  banned, 
and  foolish  wanderer  do  but  deliberately  thrust  his 
head  into  the  lion's  mouth !  What  hallucination  turns 
his  footsteps  straight  to  the  gates  of  Geneva  ?  There 
he  takes  lodging,  and  tarries  for  a  month  in  a  little  inn 
just  by  the  city  gate,  under  the  almost  omniscient  in- 
spection of  Calvin's  eye  ;  of  course  Calvin's  eye  detects 
him,  and  the  master  of  Geneva  has  him  arrested  and 
brought  to  trial.  He  is  wily,  he  is  acute,  he  is  some- 
times abusive  ;  he  caricatures  Calvin  and  his  doctrines ; 
his  opinions  are  wild  and  fanatical,  and  out  of  keeping 
with  any  recognized  philosophy  ;  he  descends  to  the 
most  abusive  personalities  against  Calvin  ;  calls  him 
pitiful  wretch,  disciple  of  Simon  Magus,  a  liar,  and 


232  CALVIN. 

even  a  murderer.  And  it  must  be  confessed  that  Cal- 
vin is  not  far  behind  him  in  his  retorts.  Servetus  is 
an  obscene  dog,  a  perfidious  villain,  and  the  reformer 
publicly  devotes  him.  to  eternal  fire.  And  so  for  two 
months  it  goes  on,  reminding  us  of  the  pitiful  Guiteau 
case,  and  leaving  us  in  the  same  dismal  state  of  ques- 
tioning whether  the  man  is  fool  or  knave,  or  both. 
And  yet  the  man  is  honest  in  his  central  conviction 
that  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  as  presented  by  Cal- 
vin is  false.  He  adheres  to  that  even  to  the  latest 
words  he  speaks.  At  length  he  is  condemned  to  the 
doom  of  heretics  in  that  day,  and  on  the  morning  after 
is  led  out  and  chained  up  to  the  stake,  and  out  of  the 
curling  flames  his  last  words  rise  to  heaven,  we  may 
be  sure  not  unheard  or  unheeded,  —  "  Jesus,  thou  Son 
of  the  Eternal  God,  have  mercy  upon  me  !  " 

Why  try  to  excuse  the  crime  ?  Why  multiply  dis- 
cussion upon  the  matter  ?  Why  try  to  save  the  honor 
of  an  ecclesiastical  idol  now,  three  hundred  years  after 
Calvin  has  seen  the  matter  as  it  was  in  the  light  of 
God  ?  Calvin  does  not  excuse  it  now  ;  why  should 
we  ?  Calvin,  with  all  his  greatness,  and  all  his  good- 
ness, and  all  his  logic,  was  human  —  scarcely  humane. 
I  cannot  make  much  of  the  fact  that  his  very  hands 
did  not  lay  the  fagots ;  that  he  tried  to  have  the  mode 
of  Servetus's  execution  changed  ;  that  the  case  of  Ser- 
vetus was  already  stirring  up  a  party  against  Calvin 
in  Geneva ;  that  it  was  the  method  of  the  day,  with 
all  religious  parties,  to  burn  for  heresy  ;  that  Melanc- 
thon  and  Bullinger,  and  the  gentlest  of  the  reformers, 
gave  their  sanction  to  the  deed.  Make  much  of  all 
this  who  will,  and  apologize  for  it  who  may,  that  I  be- 
lieve in  Calvinism  high  or  low,  broad  or  narrow,  does 
not  devolve  upon  me  any  responsibility  for  Calvin's 


HIS  WORK  PARTIAL  — NOT  FINAL.        233 

crime.  And  crime  it  was,  under  the  most  favorable 
treatment  of  the  subject. 

I  am  not  sure  that  it  is  not  a  blessing  to  us  in  these 
later  times  that  Calvin  had  so  large  a  hand  in  the 
burning  of  Servetus.  Let  it  remind  us  that  logic  is 
not  religion,  though  Calvin  was  religious.  Let  it 
prove  to  us  that  system  may  exist,  and  yet  the  very 
soul  of  pure  and  undefiled  truth  may  not  be  held  in 
its  meshes ;  that  men  may  get  out  of  their  interpre- 
tation of  the  Bible,  however  well  concatenated  and 
consistent,  false  deductions  as  to  duty  and  life. 

In  fact,  the  weakness  of  Calvinism  lies  at  the  point 
of  this  suggestion,  for  it  has  a  great  weakness  notwith- 
standing all  its  magnificent  strength  and  superb  pro- 
portions. There  are  some  regions  over  which  logic 
cannot  be  supreme,  which,  indeed,  it  cannot  enter.  Its 
conclusions  do  not  hold  in  the  realm  of  love,  of  faith, 
of  penitence,  of  prayer,  of  adoration,  and  of  hope. 
In  that  border  land  where  the  finite  meets  the  Infinite, 
where  time  touches  eternity,  where  the  Spirit  of  God 
and  the  spirit  of  man  transact,  —  at  that  point  where 
the  Father  falls  upon  the  neck  of  his  child  and  kisses 
him,  dialectics  cease.  Man  has  other  faculties  besides 
those  of  the  understanding,  which  are  at  least  coordi- 
nate with  it  in  their  authority.  They  must  play  their 
part  in  the  interpretation  of  the  divine  utterances,  and 
must  be  honored  by  us  even  as  God  has  honored  them 
in  his  Word  and  in  his  ways.  Nor  can  any  one  man, 
or  any  one  age,  interpret  God  for  all  men  and  all  ages. 
Neither  Augustine,  nor  Calvin,  nor  any  of  their  suc- 
cessors, has  been  empowered  to  say,  "  My  interpreta- 
tions are  ultimate  and  infallible."  St.  Paul  has  inti- 
mated that  a  time  is  coming  when  even  that  of  which 
we  now  boast  as  knowledge  will  pass  away.  "  Other 


234  CALVIN. 

foundation  can  no  man  lay  than  that  is  laid,  v^hich  is 
Jesus  Christ."  Augustine,  Remigius,  Anselm,  Luther, 
Calvin,  may  do  their  work  in  adding  to  the  glorious 
pile ;  but  let  no  man  dare  to  say,  the  temple  of  truth 
has  been  witnessed  in  its  perfection  by  these  eyes,  and 
carried  by  this  hand  to  its  completion. 

Calvin's  life  continued  but  little  longer,  —  a  few 
years  of  wasting  toil  but  of  impetuous  energy,  of  tire- 
less work  in  preaching,  teaching,  reading,  writing,  gov- 
erning, till  he  sank  out  of  life,  as  Beza  says,  with  the 
setting  sun,  on  May  27,  1564,  in  his  fifty-fifth  year. 
No  man  is  certain  of  the  place  where  his  body  lies, 
but  the  sun  never  sets  upon  his  monument. 


COLIGNY. 
A.  D.  1517-1572. 

OPPOSITION  is  the  best  mordant  to  fix  the  color  of  your  thought  in  the 
general  belief.  — DR.  0.  W.  HOLMES,  Border-Lines. 

AVENGE,  0  Lord,  thy  slaughter'd  saints,  whose  bones 

Lie  scatter'd  on  the  Alpine  mountains  cold ; 

Ev'n  them  who  kept  thy  truth  so  pure  of  old, 
When  all  our  fathers  worship'd  stocks  and  stones, 
Forget  not :  in  thy  book  record  their  groans 

Who  were  thy  sheep,  and  in  their  ancient  fold 

Slain  by  the  bloody  Piemontese  that  roll'd 
Mother  with  infant  down  the  rocks.     Their  moans 
The  vales  redoubled  to  the  hills,  and  they 

To  Heav'n.    Their  martyr'd  blood  and  ashes  sow 
O'er  all  th'  Italian  fields,  where  still  doth  sway 

The  triple  tyrant;  that  from  these  may  grow 
A  hundred  fold,  who  having  learned  thy  way 

Early  may  fly  the  Babylonian  woe. 

MILTON'S  Sonnet,  On  the  late  Massacre  in  Piemont. 


X. 

COLIGNY. 
A.  D.  1517-1572. 

A  RECENT  writer J  upon  the  present  religious  con- 
dition of  France  says :  "  The  French  are  a  people 
of  interest.  Their  qualities  of  mind,  their  suscepti- 
bility to  great  suggestions,  their  quick  apprehension 
of  ideas,  the  irresistible  fascination  which  seizes  them 
when  under  great  impulses,  their  ardor  and  enthu- 
siasm, are  characteristics  which  command  considera- 
tion. .  .  .  They  communicate  earnestly  what  they 
think  and  feel.  They  have  a  spirit  of  aggression. 
They  have  never  failed  to  put  their  stamp  upon  the 
times  and  things  with  which  they  have  to  do."  The 
French  character,  a  compound,  in  the  main,  of  Celtic 
and  Teutonic  elements,  doubtless  presents  these  as  its 
most  obvious  and  impressive  features.  They  appear 
prominently  at  every  stage  of  the  national  history. 
This  susceptibility  to  great  suggestions,  this  fascina- 
tion under  grand  impulses,  this  aggressive  enthusiasm 
for  communicating  what  they  think  and  feel,  go  far 
in  accounting  for  the  great  civil  and  social  upheavals 
which  have  marked  their  history,  and  for  the  sudden 
and  radical  changes  which  have  repeatedly  taken 
place  in  their  government.  They  go  far,  likewise,  in 

1  Rev.  Dr.  A.  F.  Beard,  of  the  American  Chapel,  Paris,  in 
Andover  Review,  January,  1884. 


233  COLIGNY. 

accounting  for  the  strong  and  permanent  hold  with 
which  certain  notions  are  rooted  in  the  French  mind, 
and  for  their  perpetual  recurrence  in  French  history. 
An  idea  is  firmly  held  as  it  is  clearly  grasped, 
whether  by  an  individual  or  a  community ;  and  so, 
with  Frenchmen,  a  great  idea  is  easy  to  start,  and 
correspondingly  hard  to  kill.  This  assertion  is  abun- 
dantly verified  by  the  history  of  the  reformed  religion 
in  France.  Its  beginnings  were  rapid,  its  enemies 
were  powerful  and  determined,  the  forces  which  were 
bent  upon  its  extinction  were  manifold  and  rigorous. 
And  yet,  for  three  hundred  years,  it  has  survived, 
under  persecutions  which  have  been  nowhere  else  so 
injurious,  and  under  outrages  which  have  been  no- 
where else  so  malignant.  In  the  beginning  of  the 
sixteenth  century  France  seemed  likely  to  take  the 
lead  of  the  Reformation  in  Europe.  Five  years  be- 
fore Luther  posted  his  theses  in  Wittenberg,  Faber 
had  put  forth  at  Paris  his  commentaries  on  St.  Paul's 
Epistles,  in  which  the  chief  Lutheran  doctrines  were 
clearly  defended,  and  had  said  to  his  pupil,  Farel, 
"God  will  renovate  the  world,  and  you  will  be  a 
witness  of  it."  Indeed,  far  back  of  this  time,  there 
were  lingering  in  the  south  and  southeast  of  France 
remnants  of  the  old  Albigenses,  and  of  the  Vaudois, 
who  for  centuries  had  held  to  the  simple  truths  of 
the  gospel,  in  opposition  to  the  corruptions  of  Rome ; 
who,  if  they  were  not  indeed  the  immediate  inheritors 
of  the  purity  of  the  primitive  apostolic  church,  at 
least  may  be  said  to  have  led  the  way  of  all  others 
in  emancipation  from  papal  thralldom.  Their  origin 
is  uncertain.1  Peter  Waldo,  so  far  from  being  their 

1  Within  the  first  two  centuries  Christianity  had  extended  to 
Lyons. 


FABER,   FAREL,  AND  BR1CONNET.        239 

founder,  more  probably  derived  his  name  from  them.1 
For  a  thousand  years,  in  the  valleys  of  the  Alps,  they 
realized  the  vision  of  the  Hebrew  prophet,  of  a  bush 
that  was  burned  with  fire  and  yet  not  consumed. 

As  early  as  1512,  Jacques  Le  Fevre  d'Etaples,  or, 
by  his  Latin  name,  Faber  Stapulensis,  who  had  studied 
in  Florence  while  Savonarola  was  preaching  there, 
by  his  biblical  studies  became  convinced  of  the  neces- 
sity of  reform  in  the  life  of  the  Church.  This  man, 
profoundly  versed  in  the  new  learning,  and  as  deeply 
impressed  by  the  spiritual  needs  of  the  time,  became 
the  patriarch  of  the  French  Reformation.  He  drew 
to  his  instruction  two  men  who  became  sympathetic 
and  powerful  helpers.  The  one  was  that  William 
Farel,  who,  as  we  saw  in  the  last  lecture,  started  the 
work  in  Geneva,  and  fixed  Calvin  there  as  his  suc- 
cessor. The  other  was  William  Briconnet,  who  shortly 
became  Bishop  of  Meaux.  In  these  three  men  it 
seemed,  for  a  time,  as  if  there  were  a  threefold  cord, 
not  to  be  quickly  broken :  Faber,  the  scholar,  who 
could  write  and  defend  the  new  opinions ;  Farel,  the 
fiery  and  enthusiastic  preacher,  who  could  put  Faber's 
work  in  a  popular  and  forceful  way ;  and  Briconnet, 
the  bishop,  who,  with  his  ecclesiastical  authority  and 
influence,  could  further  and  defend  the  efforts  of  both. 
The  see  of  Meaux,  it  would  seem,  might  have  become 
the  Wittenberg  of  France.  It  had  its  Elector  Fred- 
eric in  Bri£onnet,  its  Melancthon  in  Faber,  its  Luther 
in  Farel.  But,  alas  !  one  strand  of  the  cord  was  weak. 
Bishop  Brigonriet,  wanting  the  courage  to  maintain 
his  convictions  against  charges  of  heresy  which  were 
made  against  him,  turned  about,  and  even  acquiesced 

1  The  Israel  of  the  Alps,  by  Alexis  Muston,  translated  by  Wil- 
liam Hazlitt,  ch.  i. 


240  COL1GNY. 

in  the  persecution  which  was  instituted  in  his  diocese. 
Farel,  as  we  have  seen,  was  driven  to  Geneva,  and 
Faber  betook  himself  to  the  court  of  the  good  Mar- 
garet of  Navarre. 

But  a  great  work  had  already  been  accomplished, 
even  before  Brigonnet's  defection  ;  a  work  which  was 
destined  to  fill,  with  its  record  of  undying  faith,  and 
quenchless  courage,  and  knightly  honor,  and  unmeas- 
ured sorrow,  the  bloodiest  page  of  history.  Faber 
and  Farel  had  set  on  foot  a  movement  which  for  a 
long  time  was  to  make  its  own  way  without  human 
patronage,  and  with  little  of  human  leadership.  Faber 
had  given  the  people  the  New  Testament  in  their  own 
language.  Tracts  and  handbills  containing  portions 
of  the  Bible  were  scattered  abroad  in  great  numbers. 
About  this  time  arose  a  singer,  who  helped  the  cause 
mightily,  —  "  the  Robert  Burns  of  his  day,"  —  who, 
without  any  great  degree  of  piety,  could  write  with 
equal  ease  a  religious  hymn,  a  popular  ballad,  or  a 
stinging  satire.  Clement  Marot  wrote  poetry  for  the 
profligate  Diana  of  Poitiers,  directed  his  squibs  against 
the  Sorbonists  ;  better  than  all,  translated  the  Psalms 
of  David  into  rhymes  which  soon  all  Paris  and  all 
France  were  singing.  It  even  became  the  fashion  to 
sing  them  at  court.  The  king  sang  the  47th  Psalm 
—  "Like  as  the  hart  doth  pant  and  bray"  —for  a 
hunting  song.  Each  courtier  had  his  favorite  Psalm. 
The  nobles  sang  them  in  their  castles,  the  workmen  at 
their  toil.  Charles  V.  rewarded  the  poet  for  his  Psalms 
with  a  purse  of  two  hundred  doubloons.  The  more 
violent  among  the  papists  tried  to  suppress  them. 
One  translated  the  Odes  of  Horace  into  French, 
and  set  them  to  music,  hoping  to  supplant  Marot ; 
but  his  work  fell  dead.  The  Psalms,  for  a  time, 


CLEMENT  MAROT.  241 

crowded  out  the  ribald  songs  of  the  street.  What 
the  fashionable  world  sang  for  fashion's  sake,  the 
humble  vine-dressers  in  the  valleys  sang  for  the  sake 
of  the  light,  and  comfort,  and  peace  it  brought  to 
their  souls.  Clement  Marot  did  as  great  a  work  for 
Huguenoterie,  in  its  infancy,  as  Charles  Wesley  did 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years  afterwards  for  Method- 
ism. A  Romish  historian  wrote :  "  The  wise  world, 
stupidly  wise  in  this,  which  judges  of  things  by  the 
outward  appearance  only,  praised  this  sort  of  amuse- 
ment, not  seeing  that  under  this  chant,  or  rather  new 
enchantment,  a  thousand  pernicious  novelties  crept 
into  their  souls."  1  We  saw,  too,  in  the  last  lecture, 
how  at  this  time  Calvin,  while  a  student  in  Paris,  was 
disseminating  the  reformation  truth,  and  how  people 
came  in  throngs  to  his  study  to  hear  him  expound  the 
Scriptures. 

It  was  thus,  in  a  great  variety  of  ways,  that  the 
truth  gained  a  footing  in  France.  It  was  as  if  some 
great  invisible  hand  were  stretched  down  out  of 
heaven  to  scatter  the  seed  broadcast.  It  fell  in  all 
sorts  of  strange  places,  no  one  could  tell  how.  There 
was  no  recognizable  human  leader ;  the  movement  was 
carried  on  privately.  There  was  nowhere  any  organ- 
ization ;  for  half  a  century  there  was  no  form,  no 
church,  no  discipline,  no  creed.  A  few  men  came 
together  here  and  there,  "in  fields,  gardens,  barns, 
no  matter  where.  Their  preachers,"  says  a  satirist 
of  the  time,  "  were  butchers,  bricklayers,  publicans, 
and  other  venerable  doctors  of  that  sort."  The  night 
was  the  most  frequent  time  of  their  assemblage. 
Their  sexton  and  bell-ringer  was  often  a  boy  who 

1  Floriniond  de  Rernoud,  quoted  by  White,  St.  Bartholomew, 
p.  49,  English  edition. 
1G 


242  COLIGNY. 

would  pass  through  the  street  whistling  a  tune,  as 
our  boys  in  Boston  now  call  their  mates  to  the  evening 
rendezvous.  Or  a  careless  string  would  be  hung  from 
a  window,  insignificant  to  all  but  those  who  knew  the 
token.  That  French  susceptibility  to  grand  ideas, 
that  fascination  under  great  impulses,  that  enthusiasm 
for  communicating  what  they  think  and  feel,  so  char- 
acteristic of  the  French  nature,  were  supplying  the 
lack  of  form  and  organization.  Men  were  held  to- 
gether by  the  invisible  bond  of  a  grand  thought,  —  the 
idea  which  had  seized  them  severally  and  held  them 
as  one,  —  that  priestcraft,  and  pretense,  and  churchly 
arrogance  were  all  to  be  swept  away,  and  to  exist  no 
longer  as  barriers  to  interpose  between  the  individual 
soul  of  man  and  the  face  and  favor  of  his  God.  And 
so  for  fifty  years,  with  no  other  organization  than  this, 
Huguenoterie  was  gathering  through  all  France.  For 
a  long  time  the  summer  showers  that  fall  upon  the 
slopes  of  a  hundred  hills  may  be  kept  apart  ;  they 
may  trickle  and  wander  through  a  thousand  dark 
crevices,  and  secret  conduits,  and  obscure  ravines, 
through  water-ways  that  seem  to  have  no  common 
outlet ;  but  the  principle  of  gravity  is  in  every  drop, 
and  the  hour  of  union,  soon  or  late,  is  at  length 
inevitable. 

But  the  church  which  was  thus  gathering  under  its 
invisible  leadership  was  subjected  to  bitter  persecu- 
tion. If  the  flame  of  its  life  was  continually  fed  by 
oil  from  hidden  conduits,  it  was  no  less  constantly 
threatened  with  extinction  by  floods  of  oppression. 
Francis  I.,  who  held  the  throne  of  France  from  1515 
to  1547,  pursued  a  very  crooked  and  inconsistent,  not 
to  say  self-contradictory,  course  towards  the  Keforma- 
tion  ;  at  one  time  tolerating  it,  at  another  persecuting 


HENRY  IT.  243 

its  followers  without  mercy.  His  policy  was  of  the 
sort  which  cries  alternately  good  Lord  and  good 
devil.  It  was  to  him,  when,  afraid  of  offending  the 
German  princes  on  one  hand,  and  yet  of  offending  the 
ultramontanism  of  Spain  on  the  other,  he  persecuted 
the  Protestants  upon  the  plea  that  they  were  robbers 
and  Anabaptists,  that  Calvin  wrote  that  sharp  dedi- 
cation of  his  "Institutes."  A  monarch  utterly  without 
independence  of  mind,  veering  in  his  course  according 
to  the  policy  of  the  hour.  The  later  part  of  his 
reign  particularly  was  signalized  by  various  edicts  of 
extreme  severity,  under  which  men  were  hunted  to  the 
death  like  hares.  Whole  villages  were  swept  out  of 
existence.  At  one  time,  week  followed  week  of  con- 
tinuous slaughter,  until,  in  less  than  two  months, 
twenty-two  towns  and  villages  were  utterly  destroyed, 
four  thousand  men  and  women  were  slain,  and  seven 
hundred  were  sent  to  the  galleys.  A  witness  wrote, 
"  I  saw  in  one  church  between  four  and  five  hundred 
poor  women  and  children  butchered."  Barns  were 
burned  filled  with  refugees  who  had  retreated  to  them 
for  hiding.  Some  fled  into  caves,  and  were  suffocated 
by  fires  kindled  at  the  entrances.  And  yet  the  re- 
ligion, without  a  name  and  without  a  church,  lived  on. 
Did  I  not  say  truly,  that  with  Frenchmen  a  great  idea 
is  easy  to  start,  but  hard  to  kill  ? 

Then  came  the  reign  of  Henry  II.  (for  twelve  years, 
1547—1559),  with  Catherine  de  Medicis  for  his  queen, 
Diana  of  Poitiers  for  his  mistress,  and  the  Guises  for 
his  counselors  and  bosom  friends,  —  names  all  of  them 
to  send  a  thrill  of  horror  through  the  most  callous  and 
passionless  stoicism.  If  Francis  I.  had  ever  wavered 
and  shown  himself  mercifully  inclined  towards  Prot- 
estantism, his  son  could  be  accused  of  no  such  weak- 


COLIGNY. 

ness.  His  little  finger  was  thicker  than  his  father's 
loins.  His  reign  began  with  rigor.  He  meant  to 
consolidate  his  kingdom  by  compelling  all  men  to 
think  in  one  way.  All  right  to  property  was  taken 
away  from  heretics  by  edict  (1551),  no  plea  was  al- 
lowed them  in  the  courts,  they  were  denied  the  right 
of  petition  to  king  or  Parliament.  And  yet  in  this 
reign  it  was  that  the  scattered  elements  came  together 
and  compacted  themselves  into  a  church,  the  Reformed 
Church  of  France.  The  fierce  determination  to  anni- 
hilate heresy  aroused  it  and  brought  it  to  bay.  It 
stood  up  and  declared  itself,  and  was  surprised  at  its 
own  strength.  It  began  to  gather  into  itself  some 
new  elements.  It  was  not  only  the  humble  and  the 
poor  who  now  allied  themselves  with  its  fortunes. 
Men  and  women  of  wealth,  lawyers,  bankers,  merchants, 
were  drawn  to  the  hated  doctrines.  They  had  their 
secret  votaries  even  in  the  court.  Calvin's  "  Institutes  " 
had  been  written  for  men  of  thought,  and  miserable 
a  coadjutor  as  Erasmus  had  personally  turned  out  to 
the  cause  of  the  Reformation,  his  satires  still  had  their 
power.  Huguenoterie  was  speedily  to  develop  into  a 
mighty  political  force.  It  could  do  something  beside 
sing  the  psalms  of  Marot.  It  had  hands  and  feet,  and 
could  march  and  fight  when  the  man  should  appear 
to  marshal  and  command  its  energies.  The  man  was 
getting  ready,  and  the  hour  was  drawing  nigh. 

The  actual  organization  of  the  reformed  churches 
began  in  a  very  simple  and  beautiful  way.  The  theo- 
retical question  has  often  been  debated,  whether,  if  a 
company  of  men  were  cast  away  upon  some  desert 
island  without  priest  or  minister,  any  true  church  with 
valid  ordinances  could  be  formed.  That  hypothetical 
question  was  a  practical  one  in  Paris  in  the  year 


THE   CHURCH  IN  THE  HOUSE.  245 

1555,  which  is  the  date  of  the  first  organization  of  the 
Huguenots.  It  was  in  this  wise.  A  child  was  born  to 
a  noble  Frenchman  in  whose  house  a  little  company  of 
Protestants  were  accustomed  to  meet  secretly  for  relig- 
ious worship.  Drawn  together  in  such  tender  sympa- 
thies as  proscribed  people  always  are,  they  rejoiced 
in  the  joy  of  the  household  over  the  cradle  of  the  lit- 
tle child.  "  But  how,"  said  the  father  to  his  friends, 
"shall  it  be  consecrated  to  God  in  baptism?  I  am 
unwilling  to  have  the  popish  rites  performed  over  it. 
I  cannot  carry  it  away  into  Geneva  or  Germany.  We 
need  a  church  and  the  sacraments  for  ourselves  and 
our  children.  Why  may  we  not  form  a  church,  and 
elect  a  pastor  from  among  ourselves  ?  Surely  there 
are  those  among  us  who  are  godly  enough  and  learned 
enough."  Strange  that  it  had  not  been  suggested 
before  in  all  that  fifty  years !  Some  among  them  were 
still  afraid  to  entertain  the  proposal  lest  it  should  sub- 
ject them  to  new  and  fiercer  persecution.  But  they 
talked  about  it,  prayed  and  fasted  over  it,  and  finally 
acceded  to  it.  They  cast  their  votes  for  one  who 
should  be  their  pastor,  and  one  name  was  on  all  the 
ballots.  In  the  same  way  they  chose  a  certain  number 
to  be  elders  and  deacons.  And  so  was  constituted  the 
first  church  of  the  Huguenots,  Christian,  apostolic,  and, 
so  far  as  external  polity  was  concerned,  democratic. 
From  that  time  the  scattered  Protestants  throughout 
France  became  Huguenots  in  reality,  as  they  were  in 
name,  eidgenossen,  confederates.  "  They  were  organ- 
ized," says  Beza,  "  according  to  the  example  of  the 
Church  in  primitive  times."  In  less  than  three  years 
from  this  time,  so  rapid  was  the  movement  towards 
organization,  there  were  two  thousand  regular  congre- 
gations of  reformed  worshipers  scattered  over  France, 


246  COL1GNY. 

numbering  four  hundred  thousand  persons.  And  one 
year  later  (May,  1559)  so  strong  were  they  that  they 
ventured  to  hold  a  general  synod,  adopt  a  confession 
of  faith,  and  settle  their  national  organization. 

We  have  thus  traced,  in  barest  outline,  the  history 
of  the  Huguenots  during  the  period  of  their  sup- 
pression. They  are  now  an  organized  and  significant 
power  in  the  state.  As  such  their  history  may  best  be 
followed  by  tracing  that  of  a  single  man,  —  a  man 
who  was  the  first  and  greatest  leader  of  the  Huguenots, 
in  whom  the  reform  found  its  best  representative, 
whether  as  a  social,  political,  or  spiritual  force  ;  who 
was  recognized  at  home  and  abroad  as  its  head  and 
its  heart,  at  whom  all  its  enemies  struck,  in  whom  all 
its  friends  confided,  and  who  was  the  first  and  most 
prominent  victim  in  that  Bartholomew  massacre,  which 
annihilated  the  power,  though  it  could  not  crush  the 
spirit,  of  the  Reformed  Church  of  France. 

Gaspard  de  Coliguy,  Marquis  of  Chatillon,  was  born 
February  16,  1517,  the  year  of  Luther's  theses,  at 
Chatillon-sur-Loing.  He  was  of  a  house  whose  mem- 
bers had  been  concerned  in  the  great  movements  of 
France  for  five  hundred  years.  His  father  had  taken 
lessons  from  Chevalier  Bayard,  had  been  grand  mar- 
shal under  Francis  I.,  and  was  one  of  the  chieftains 
on  the  Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold.  His  mother  was 
Louise  de  Montmorenci,  proudest  of  all  the  names  of 
the  old  French  nobility.  Admiral  Coligny  thus  rep- 
resented in  himself  the  finest  product  of  ancient 
chivalry  taken  up  and  glorified  by  Christianity.  He 
stands  at  a  singular  crisis  in  history.  Feudalism  was 
just  dying  out,  Renovated  Religion  was  just  coming  in 
along  with  the  Renaissance,  and  the  forces  of  all  three 
were  confluent  in  this  man's  character,  as  they  were 


THE   TRAINING   OF  COLIGNY.  247 

found,  probably,  in  no  other  of  his  age.  Such  a  con- 
junction in  any  other  age  would  have  been  impossible 
from  the  nature  of  the  case.  As  a  representative  of 
the  old  chivalry,  he  was  a  most  perfect,  gentle  knight. 
He  seems  to  have  been  the  last  consummate  flower 
produced  by  the  stalk  before  it  died  down  forever,  at 
least  in  France,  as  perhaps  Sir  Philip  Sidney  was  in 
England,  who  was  contemporary  with  him.1  All  that 
blood  untainted  by  dishonor  or  by  vice,  breeding  the 
most  scrupulous  and  delicate,  the  refinements  of  a 
home  that  had  grown  up  into  a  nursery  for  his  in- 
fancy, through  long  generations  of  brave  and  pure  an- 
cestors, and  that  had  been  adorned  by  as  many  gen- 
erations of  gracious  and  lovely  motherhood,  —  all  that 
this  could  do,  had  its  outcome  in  Gaspard  de  Coligny. 
In  addition  to  this,  his  boyhood  had  the  advantages 
of  the  revival  of  letters.  He  had  come  of  a  race  of 
warriors  who  could  carve  their  way  well  enough  with 
the  sword,  and  bear  down  their  antagonists  in  the 
tournament  with  the  lance,  but  who  could  do  little 
more  than  make  their  mark  with  the  pen.  But  Gas- 
pard and  his  brothers  had  a  generous  tuition  in  lan- 
guages and  philosophy,  added  to  the  training  of  the 
court  and  the  field.  And  then,  to  crown  and  complete 
the  whole,  his  childhood  received  a  fine  spiritual  cul- 
ture from  his  mother,  Louise  de  Montmorenci,  who 
was  left  a  widow  when  Gaspard  was  but  five  years 
old.  Madame  de  Chatillon  had  been  among  the  few 
ladies  at  the  royal  court,  of  high  rank,  whose  hearts 
were  pure,  and  whose  lives  were  absolutely  free  from 
scandal.  She  sympathized  heartily  with  the  new  spirit 

1  Sir  Philip  Sidney  was  in  Paris  when  the  massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew  took  place,  and  narrowly  escaped  being  one  of  its 
victims. 


248  COLJGNY. 

of  religious  reform.  She  carefully  secured  for  her 
children  tutors  of  a  like  mind,  so  that  the  education 
which  they  received  developed  the  fine  combination  of 
the  heroic,  the  courtly,  the  scholarly,  and  the  spiritual. 
And  in  Gaspard  the  balance  of  these  seems  to  have 
been  as  nearly  perfect  as  in  any  character  that  greets 
us  from  the  page  of  history.  He  was  as  brave  as  he 
was  courtly,  as  scholarly  as  brave,  as  devout  and  spir- 
itual as  scholarly,  and  withal  of  good  temper  and  good 
sense.  No  character  of  modern  history  seems  to  me 
so  nearly  to  resemble  him  as  our  own  Washington,  — 
a  character  of  whom  even  those  who  were  his  enemies 
have  nothing  to  say  save  what  is  good.  Brantdme, 
who  fought  against  him  and  the  Huguenots,  says  : 
"  Chatillon  was  prodigiously  learned  and  eloquent ;  he 
understood  and  spoke  Latin  well ;  he  had  both  studied 
and  read ;  was  always  reading  when  not  engaged  in 
affairs ;  he  was  a  lord  of  honor  ;  a  man  of  goodness, 
sage,  mature,  well-advised,  politic,  and  brave ;  a  cen- 
sor and  weigher  of  things,  loving  honor  and  virtue." 
Francis  of  Guise,  but  two  years  younger,  was  the 
friend  and  intimate  of  his  youth,  and  the  two  have 
been  often  compared,  destined  as  they  were  in  after 
years  to  become  the  popular  champions  of  two  great 
parties ;  the  name  of  Guise  becoming  the  watchword 
and  war-cry  of  the  Papists,  as  that  of  Coligny  was  of 
the  Huguenots.  They  looked  alike ;  in  early  days 
seemed  to  feel  and  think  alike  ;  but  the  one  developed 
the  devil,  the  other  the  saint.  "The  one  was  am- 
bitious, selfish,  crafty ;  the  other  ingenuous,  frank, 
open-hearted;  the  one  made  religion  serve  his  own 
purposes ;  the  other  served  the  cause  of  religion  with 
a  faith  that  was  heroic,  and  with  aims  that  imparted  a 
grandeur  even  to  his  failures."1 
1  Blackburn. 


HIS  BRAVERY.  249 

At  the  age  of  twenty-six  he  enters  fully  upon  the 
profession  of  arms.  He  is  seen  upon  the  fields  of 
Italy,  Lorraine,  Flanders,  and  Northern  France,  al- 
ways loyal,  and  never  weighing  his  life  against  the 
interests  of  his  king.  Indeed,  to  the  very  last,  when 
king  and  court  at  times  are  ready  to  hew  him  in 
pieces  or  burn  him  at  the  stake,  it  is  avowedly  the 
highest  interest  of  king  and  country  that  forms  his 
most  sacred  motive.  He  is  a  most  fearless  knight. 
Summoned  home  from  the  siege  of  Luxembourg  by 
his  granduncle  Montmorenci,  on  a  plea  of  important 
matters  that  demand  immediate  attention,  he  finds  it 
to  be  only  a  pretext  to  get  a  favorite  nephew  out  of 
danger,  is  indignant  at  being  thrust  into  the  false  po- 
sition of  apparent  cowardice,  and  hastens  back  to  the 
scene  of  death.  Wounded  fearfully  in  the  trenches, 
yet  fighting  on,  he  is  forced  by  his  commander  to  re- 
tire. His  throat  is  torn  open  by  a  musket  ball,  and 
the  surgeon  thinks  he  will  bleed  to  death  ;  but  only 
ten  days  will  he  be  forced  to  keep  his  tent,  and  then, 
against  the  protests  of  his  superiors,  takes  the  field 
anew.  The  king  discovers  that  he  has  no  man  like 
this  Chatillon  to  command  an  enterprise  of  danger  or 
of  delicacy ;  sends  him  upon  commissions  of  policy  or 
of  hazard,  —  now  to  quell  a  revolt  in  Rochelle,  then  to 
relieve  the  army  in  Italy,  again  to  defend  the  garrison 
at  Boulogne.  And  yet  the  man  has  no  love  for  fight- 
ing ;  never  was  a  more  peace-loving  soul.  Conflict 
for  conflict's  sake  is  his  abhorrence  from  first  to  last. 
Even  those  plays  at  warfare  in  the  tilt-yard  and  the 
tournament  have  for  him  no  fascination.  The  tourna- 
ment was  the  fashionable  prize-fight  of  that  age.  It 
was  the  form  of  brutal  entertainment  that  was  popu- 
lar with  kings  and  princes  and  the  lords  and  ladies  of 


250  COLIGNY. 

the  courts.  To  Coligny  it  was  as  barbarous,  hideous, 
disgraceful  as  are  the  contests  of  the  prize-ring  to-day 
to  the  friends  of  the  society  for  the  prevention  of 
cruelty. 

In  1547,  when  he  is  thirty  years  of  age,  he  marries 
Charlotte  de  Laval,  a  marriage  attended  with  results 
of  signal  importance  to  Coligny,  to  the  Huguenots,  to 
France,  to  the  Church  of  Christ,  and  doubtless  to  us 
here  and  now. 

As  if  fortune  were  intent  upon  heaping  all  her 
favors  upon  him  at  once,  he  soon  after  receives  a  sum- 
mons from  his  king,1  who  says,  "For  your  bravery 
everywhere,  your  superior  discipline,  your  meritorious 
services  at  Cerisola  and  Boulogne,  I  confer  upon  you 
another  order  of  knighthood.  Receive  the  collar  of 
my  order  of  St.  Michael."  A  few  days  after  another 
summons,  this  time  to  no  empty  decoration,  but  to 
substantial  service,  which  he  relished  better  :  "  I  ap- 
point you  colonel  -  general  of  the  French  Infantry." 
He  is  not  a  Huguenot  yet,  far  less  a  leader  of  the  Hu- 
guenots, only  the  best  young  officer  in  the  army  of  the 
King  of  France  ;  but  see  how  God  is  preparing  the 
man  for  the  work  which  lies  hidden  before  him.  I 
have  already  shown  you  how  the  work  was  gradually 
being  prepared  for  the  man ;  this  is  how  the  man  was 
being  prepared  for  his  work.  The  work  and  the  man 
will  soon  be  brought  together,  and  that  young  wife  at 
home  in  the  castle,  Charlotte  de  Laval,  will  have 
something  to  do  with  it.  With  his  new  commission 
Coligny  goes  to  the  camp,  and  straightway  the  man 
puts  himself  into  the  whole  army.  It  is  a  motley 
crew.  Here  are  troops  of  foreign  mercenaries,  who 
care  far  less  for  the  victories  of  war  than  for  plunder 
i  Henry  II. 


REFORMS   THE  ARMY.  251 

and  rioting.  There  is  little  order  in  the  camp  or  in 
the  field.  The  men  are  idle,  dissipated,  profane,  swear- 
ing in  all  the  languages  of  the  continent.  They  are 
debauchees  at  rest,  brigands  on  the  march.  Coligny 
will  have  no  such  disorder  ;  a  soldier,  if  not  a  Chris- 
tian, should  at  least  be  a  gentleman.  Profanity  shall 
be  abolished ;  for  the  first  offense  he  awards  eight 
days  in  prison,  on  bread  and  water ;  for  the  second, 
the  amende  honorable,  in  the  shirt  and  upon  the 
knees  ;  for  the  third,  the  hand  to  be  struck  off.  And 
the  swearing  ceases.  There  shall  be  no  more  quarrels 
among  men,  or  duels  between  officers.  Whatever  a 
soldier  takes  shall  be  taken  only  by  permission,  and 
scrupulously  paid  for.  The  honor  of  woman  shall  be 
respected ;  whoever  insults  or  attacks  a  woman  shall 
be  hanged  or  strangled  to  death.  They  thought  at 
first  that  the  law  would  prove  a  dead  letter,  but  it  was 
carried  out.  "  This  offender,"  said  they,  "  lives  in 
your  own  town,  under  the  walls  of  your  own  castle : 
will  you  punish  him  ?  "  "  All  the  more  for  that ;  he 
knows  that  I  mean  what  I  say."  When  the  order  was 
once  established  its  beneficence  was  seen  and  acknowl- 
edged. Coligny's  own  regiment  was  to  be  depended 
upon  for  any  service  of  unusual  hazard.  The  towns 
through  which  he  marched,  or  in  whose  neighborhood 
he  encamped,  felt  secure.  His  men  became  a  legion 
that  would  start  to  their  feet  at  his  call.  An  old 
writer,1  not  a  Huguenot  nor  a  friend  to  the  Hugue- 
nots, says  that  Coligny's  rules  preserved  the  lives  of 
millions  of  persons,  to  say  nothing  of  their  goods  and 
property.  He  was  thus  the  inventor  of  modern  mili- 
tary discipline.  He,  more  than  any  other  man,  made 
the  soldier  even  of  to-day.  He  was  the  first  to  make 
honor  the  condition  of  wearing  the  uniform. 
1  Brantome. 


252  COLIGNY. 

My  limits  will  not  allow  me  to  detail  the  career 
through  which  Coligny  rose  to  the  highest  point  of 
court  favor.  He  was,  of  course,  the  object  of  abuse, 
suspicious,  envies,  jealousies,  as  every  true  man  must 
be  on  such  a  path.  In  1552  he  is  made,  at  thirty-five 
years  of  age,  Admiral  of  France.  In  1556  he  is  sent 
by  his  king,  Henry  II.,  to  negotiate  the  treaty  of  Yau- 
celles  with  Philip  of  Spain.1  The  truce  agreed  upon 
is  to  last  for  five  years.  It  is  a  truce  not  favorable 
to  the  Pope,  because  it  binds  Henry  not  to  interfere 
with  the  Spanish  operations  in  Italy.  But  Diana  of 
Poitiers  and  the  Guises  and  the  Pope  know  how  to 
manipulate  Henry,  and  they  compel  him  to  break  the 
truce  before  a  single  year  has  passed  by.  And  so  in 
a  few  short  months  Coligny  sees  his  peace-making 
work  at  an  end,  and  true  to  his  king,  though  the  king 
is  false  to  himself,  he  is  again  in  the  field.  And  now 
comes  that  famous  siege  of  St.  Quentin,  which  you  can 
best  read,  or  rather  see  like  a  picture,  in  the  pages  of 
Motley  and  Prescott.2  Coligny  holds  the  town  for 
three  weeks  against  an  overwhelming  force.  The  delay 
saves  Paris,  but  the  fortunes  of  war  are  against  Co- 
ligny, and  he  is  made  a  prisoner.  It  was  just  at  this 
time  that  that  little  Huguenot  Church  first  formed  in 
Paris  was  holding  its  meetings,  and  other  churches 
were  springing  into  organic  life  all  over  the  kingdom. 
Coligny  held  back  that  Spanish  army  just  long  enough 
to  keep  it  from  sweeping  through  France  and  blotting 
the  new  little  churches  all  out  of  existence.  He  was 

1  See  Prescott's  Philip  IL,  book  i.,  cb.  v. 

2  It  was  the  capture  of  that  city  upon  St.  Lawrence's  Day  in 
memory  of  which  Philip  built  the  Escorial.    For  the  story  of  the 
siege  vide  Prescott,  Philip  //.,  book  i.,  ch.  vii.  ;  Motley,  Dutch  Re- 
yublic,  part  i.,  ch.  ii. 


PRISON  REFLECTIONS.  263 

even  than  working  for  the  great  cause  without  know- 
ing at  the  time  how  great  a  service  he  was  render- 
ing. But  he  is  now  drawing  into  a  closer  relation 
to  the  proscribed  and  hated  people.  Shut  up  for 
months  in  a  Flemish  prison,  his  Bible  is  his  constant 
companion.  His  brother  Andelot  sends  him  books 
which  let  in  more  and  more  of  the  new  light.  Calvin 
knows  the  kindly  religious  influences  under  which  he 
has  been  trained,  and  writes  him.  It  leads  to  corre- 
spondence. All  the  best  men  and  women  whom  he 
knows  favor  the  Huguenots ;  he  is  more  than  half  a 
Huguenot  himself.  But  if  he  goes  over,  what  will  it 
cost  him  ?  The  favor  of  his  king,  and  the  extinction  of 
any  hopes  which  he  may  have  cherished  of  further  pre- 
ferment. It  will  bring  him  into  constant  suspicion, 
perhaps  into  persecution.  Hitherto  he  had  made  a 
compromise  with  himself.  He  had  believed,  along  with 
Erasmus,  that  the  Church  might  be  reformed  from 
within.  His  father  and  uncles  had  never  broken  with 
the  old  Church.  But  he  sees  now  that  the  compromise 
cannot  be  honestly  maintained.  The  next  year,  after 
all  these  months  of  thought  and  reading  and  prayer, 
he  is  released  upon  the  payment  of  the  heavy  price  of 
fifty  thousand  crowns  for  his  liberty.  '  Doubtless  he 
counts  it  light  for  the  joy  of  getting  back  to  his  dear 
old  castle  home  of  Chatillon,  and  to  his  wife  and  the 
child  that  has  been  born  to  them. 

One  evening  after  his  return  he  is  walking  with  his 
wife  under  the  open  sky  under  the  castle  tower,  and 
she  says  to  him :  "  How  wonderful  that  you  should 
have  been  blest  in  your  captivity  with  the  knowledge 
of  the  truth  !  And  now  why  do  you  not  publicly  avow 
your  faith  and  have  a  chaplain  with  us,  preaching  in 
the  castle  and  the  little  towns  about  us  ?  " 


254  COLIGNY. 

"  Perhaps  I  might  not  hold  out  if  I  were  subjected 
to  persecution,  and  you,  in  your  sorrows  and  suffer- 
ings, would  entreat  me  to  yield  at  the  expense  of  faith 
and  honor." 

"  Indeed,  you  should  never  be  tempted  thus  by  me. 
I  would  be  crushed  to  nothing  a  thousand  times  rather 
than  see  you  deny  Christ." 

"  This,  then,  is  the  last  cable  that  holds  me.  I 
know  the  tortures  which  the  Protestants  are  com- 
pelled to  endure.  Whoever  makes  a  public  profession 
of  the  Huguenot  faith  in  France  is  likely  to  be  seized 
and  burned,  and  his  property  confiscated  to  the  king. 
If  I  were  alone  in  the  world  this  would  not  deter  me. 
If  you  are  prepared  with  faith  and  courage  to  un- 
dergo what  is  common  to  others,  I  will  not  be  want- 
ing in  my  duty.  There  shall  be  a  family  altar,  a 
chaplain  in  our  castle,  a  church  growing  up  in  our 
town,  a  gospel  preached  to  the  poor.  I  will  be  a  Hu- 
guenot." 

"And  the  joys  beyond  all  these!  The  glories  of 
the  eternal  heavens ! "  whispered  Charlotte  de  Chatil- 
lon.  Noble  man  and  woman  !  And  how  nobly  was 
the  promise  kept  by  them  both  until  Charlotte's  death, 
and  by  her  husband  until  the  terrible  day  of  St.  Bar- 
tholomew ! 

One  day  not  long  afterwards,  the  good  knight  of 
Chatillon  and  his  wife  were  in  the  little  Huguenot 
congregation  in  the  neighborhood  when  the  Lord's 
Supper  was  to  be  celebrated.  As  the  service  was 
about  to  begin  Coligny  arose,  and  said,  "  I  beseech 
the  congregation  not  to  take  offense  at  my  weakness, 
but  to  believe  me  sincere  and  pray  for  me,  when  I  ask 
the  minister  to  explain  the  Lord's  Supper  a  little  more 
fully." 


THE  MAN  FINDS  HIS  WORK.  255 

All  were  astonished.  The  minister,  in  a  few  simple 
words,  responded  to  the  request ;  and  the  great  admi- 
ral, never  before  so  great  as  now,  when  clothed  with 
the  simplicity  of  a  little  child,  arose  again,  and  said : 

"  Permit  me,  brethren,  to  return  thanks  to  God  for 
this  instruction,  and  to  the  pastor  who  has  given  it  so 
patiently.  God  sparing  me,  I  shall  seek  to  receive  the 
communion  on  the  first  day  hereafter  when  it  is  ad- 
ministered in  my  parish." 

"  Why  not  now?  "  said  the  pastor. 

"  I  have  not  made  yet  so  public  a  profession  of  my 
faith  as  I  ought." 

"  You  are  making  it  now.  Do  you  believe  in  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  as  the  only  Saviour  and  Intercessor 
for  fallen  man?  Do  you  agree  with  us  in  the  doc- 
trines which  the  Scriptures  teach,  as  far  as  you  know 
them?" 

"  Most  sincerely  I  do,"  said  the  admiral. 

"  Then,  in  the  name  of  my  Lord  and  my  brethren, 
I  invite  you  to  this  table,  unless  the  elders  think  that 
our  usual  rules  should  be  strictly  observed." 

"  By  no  means  let  us  debar  one  of  the  Lord's 
disciples,  for  it  is  His  table,  and  not  ours,"  said  a 
venerable  elder.  "  Where  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  is 
there  is  liberty."  1 

And  so  the  great  Admiral  Coligny  crowned  the 
best  honors  that  his  king  could  bestow  by  becoming 
a  Huguenot,  and  taking  to  himself  the  higher  alle- 
giance to  the  King  of  kings,  —  an  allegiance  in  which 
he  was  as  brave  and  true  a  knight,  as  unflinching  a 
soldier,  as  stainless  in  his  spiritual  honor,  as  he  had 
ever  been  in  the  service  of  Francis  or  of  Henry. 

From  this  time  Coligny  became  inevitably  the  head 
1  Blackburn,  Coligny,  etc.,  Cornaton's  Memoirs. 


256  COLIGNY. 

of  the  Huguenots.  It  could  not  have  been  otherwise. 
The  cause  had  been  growing  for  the  man  and  the  man 
for  the  cause,  and  when  the  hour  struck  the  twain 
were  wedded  in  a  union  which  only  St.  Bartholomew's 
awful  day  saw  terminated. 

It  was  my  object  in  this  lecture  to  give  only  the 
history  of  the  rise  and  first  development  of  the  Re- 
formed Church  of  France.  I  can  therefore  do  noth- 
ing more  than  outline  the  remainder  of  the  story. 

It  was  this  same  year,  1559,  that  Francis  II.  came 
to  the  throne,  a  boy  of  sixteen,  who  was  married  to 
Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  the  niece  of  the  Guises.  This 
brought  that  hated  family  more  than  ever  into  power, 
and  they  instituted  measures  for  the  speedy  extinction 
of  heresy  throughout  the  kingdom.  One  of  these 
brothers  controlled  the  army ;  the  other  was  put  at  the 
head  of  the  treasury.  Coligny  was  retired  from  office, 
and  for  a  time  lived  quietly  at  Chatillon.  But  the 
Huguenots  were  now  beginning  to  feel  their  associated 
power.  Executions  of  popular  favorites  who  ad- 
hered to  the  reformed  opinions,  and  more  especially 
the  slaughter  at  Ainboise,1  so  far  from  depressing 
them  seemed  to  fire  their  courage.  They  dared  to 
hold  immense  open-air  meetings,  not  for  the  purpose 
of  expressing  disaffection  or  rebellion,  but  for  relig- 
ious worship.  And  yet  the  court,  strangely  blinded, 
persisted  in  the  policy  of  extermination.  Edicts  were 
promulgated  "that  every  house  proved  to  have  har- 
bored an  assembly  of  Protestants  should  be  razed  to 
the  ground,  and  that  whosoever  should  be  present  at 

1  A  plot  had  been  laid,  in  which  Coligny  had  no  part  or  lot,  to 
seize  the  person  of  the  king,  who  was  at  the  castle  of  Amboise, 
and  so  rescue  the  throne  from  the  influence  of  the  Guises.  It 
failed,  and  the  failure  was  followed  by  wholesale  massacres. 


FRANCIS  II.  257 

a  private  meeting  should  be  sentenced  to  death,  with- 
out hope  of  pardon  or  pity."  Massacre  followed  mas- 
sacre without  abatement.  Beza  is  authority  for  the 
statement  that  the  infants  of  murdered  fathers  and 
mothers  wandered  through  the  streets  crying  pite- 
ously,  less  cared  for  than  the  dogs,  with  no  bed  but 
the  flagstones ;  no  one  daring  to  relieve  their  hunger, 
or  give  them  shelter,  for  fear  of  being  accused  of 
heresy. 

The  finances  of  the  kingdom  had  long  been  in  a 
bad  way,  and  an  assembly  of  Notables  was  called  to 
provide  for  the  expenses  of  the  court.  Coligny  took 
advantage  of  the  assembly,  and  at  once  put  himself 
forward  as  the  champion  of  his  hounded  and  hunted 
brethren.  We  must  remember  that  the  right  of  peti- 
tion had  been  revoked.  It  was  death  to  champion  the 
Huguenots  in  any  way.  But  when  was  Coligny  ever 
afraid  to  serve  either  his  earthly  or  his  heavenly  king? 
He  presented  before  the  assembly  two  petitions.  In 
one  he  shows  the  real  causes  of  the  kingdom's  dis- 
quietude, and  disclaims  for  his  people  any  part  in  the 
Amboise  affair.  In  the  other  he  pleads  for  freedom 
of  thought  and  liberty  of  worship.  He  wants  only 
that  Christians  of  one  name  shall  have  the  privileges 
that  are  granted  to  those  of  another.  Nay,  he  will  be 
content  with  less  than  that.  His  people  are  willing  to 
be  excluded  from  towns,  or  to  have  a  town  or  two  in 
each  province.  They  are  willing  to  go  miles  away 
from  all  others  who  would  be  offended  or  disturbed 
by  their  assemblies.  But  the  Guises  are  inexorable. 
They  will  destroy  the  Huguenots  by  crushing  their 
leaders.  And  Coligny  has  now  put  himself  into  an 
attitude  in  which  they  will  never  more  be  reconciled 
with  him.  A  general  massacre  is  planned,  and  in 
IT 


258  COL1GNY. 

order  to  facilitate  it  the  Bourbons,  the  house  of  Na- 
varre, are  summoned  to  court.  At  this  moment,  when 
a  thousand  furies  are  poising  in  the  air  for  their  de- 
scent, the  king  dies.  It  is  as  if  the  hand  of  God  were 
stretched  out  from  heaven  to  avert  the  slaughter. 
Calvin,  in  one  of  his  letters  at  the  time,  commenting 
upon  the  event,  says  :  "  Did  you  ever  hear  or  read  of 
anything  so  opportune  as  the  death  of  the  little  king  ? 
Just  when  there  was  no  remedy  for  our  extreme  per- 
ils, God  suddenly  appeared  from  heaven,  and  he  who 
had  pierced  the  eye  of  the  father  struck  the  ear  of  the 
son."  i 

The  accession  of  Charles  IX.  strengthened  the 
hands  of  Catherine  de  Medicis,  who  had  hitherto  been 
overshadowed.  Francis  had  been  ruled  by  Mary 
Stuart,  who  was  controlled  by  her  uncles,  the  Guises ; 
but  Charles  was  a  boy  ten  years  old,  scarcely  out 
of  the  arms  of  his  mother,  who  now  reasserted  her 
authority.  Anthony  de  Bourbon,  King  of  Navarre, 
would  have  been  lawfully  regent  during  the  minority 
of  Charles,  but  he  was  too  weak  to  assert  his  claims, 
and  the  government  fell  virtually  into  the  hands  of 
the  queen-mother.  She  hates  both  the  Guise  and  the 
Huguenot:  the  former,  because  his  political  power 
threatens  to  abridge  that  of  the  throne  ;  the  latter, 
because  his  religious  principles  are  opposed  to  unlim- 
ited despotism.  Both  threaten  her  prerogative,  but 
from  different  sides.  She  proposes  to  herself,  there^ 
fore,  to  first  make  an  alliance  with  the  Protestants  for 
the  removal  of  the  Guises,  and  cautiously  bids  for  the 
support  of  Huguenotism,  which  now  embraces  nearly 

1  Francis  died  from  an  abscess  in  the  ear  ;  his  father,  Henry 
II.,  was  pierced  through  the  eye,  while  tilting,  by  the  splinter  of 
a  broken  lance. 


MASSACRE  AT   VASSY.  259 

one  fourth  of  the  population,  and  more  than  three 
fourths  of  all  the  men  of  letters  in  the  kingdom.  Ac- 
cordingly Montmorenci  and  Coligny  are  taken  seem- 
ingly into  high  favor,  and  the  Huguenots  gain  a  good 
degree  of  toleration.  Refugees  come  trooping  back 
from  England,  Germany,  Switzerland,  and  the  Nether- 
lands. A  conference  is  called  to  meet  at  Poissy  for 
the  arrangement  of  religious  differences,  which  results 
in  an  edict  of  toleration  for  the  Huguenots,  though 
under  severe  restrictions.  In  less  than  two  months  the 
edict  is  deliberately  broken  by  the  infamous  massa- 
cre at  Vassy.  The  Duke  of  Guise,  upon  entering  the 
town  on  a  Sunday  morning,  finds  the  Protestants 
assembling  in  a  barn  for  religious  worship,  and  directs 
his  armed  escort  to  break  up  the  assembly.  The  poor 
people,  mechanics  and  tradesmen  for  the  most  part, 
with  their  wives  and  children,  try  vainly  to  defend 
themselves  by  closing  the  doors ;  but  they  are  no  match 
for  two  or  three  hundred  well-armed  soldiery.  The 
duke  is  struck  by  a  flying  missile,  and  in  his  rage 
orders  his  men  to  spare  nobody ;  and  a  single  hour 
sees  more  than  forty  wives  made  widows,  sixty  Hugue- 
nots slain  outright  and  two  hundred  wounded,  some 
of  them  mortally.  Electric  wires  could  scarcely  have 
spread  the  tidings  more  swiftly  throughout  France. 
It  was  the  signal  for  civil  war. 

Wherever  the  papists  were  in  the  majority  other 
slaughters  followed :  at  Paris,  at  Sens,  at  Rouen,  and 
a  score  of  other  places.  At  Toulouse  there  was  a 
monumental  massacre  of  three  thousand,  which  was 
commemorated  by  the  Roman  Catholics  of  that  city  in 
centennial  festivals  in  1662,  in  1762,  and  which  would 
have  been  commemorated  in  1862  had  it  not  been 
prohibited  by  the  government  of  Napoleon  III,1 
1  Dr.  T.  M.  Lindsay,  Reformation,  p.  84. 


260  COLIGNY. 

I  cannot  follow  the  scenes  of  the  next  ten  years, 
through  which  Coligny  stood  the  friend,  and,  so  far  as 
mortal  arm  could  be,  the  defender  of  his  hunted  peo- 
ple :  that  bloody  decree  of  Paris,  by  which  with  one 
stroke  of  the  pen  the  entire  Huguenot  population  of 
the  kingdom  were  proscribed ;  Romanists  commanded 
to  arm  in  every  parish,  and  at  the  tap  of  drum  or  stroke 
of  bell  to  rise  and  slay  their  neighbors,  without  respect 
to  age,  or  sex,  or  ties  of  family,  without  fear  of  being 
called  to  account,  until,  as  it  was  said,  fifty  thousand 
were  murdered  ;  the  plots  for  Coligny's  assassination ; 
his  own  proscription  and  outlawry ;  how  his  castle  was 
dismantled,  and  his  furniture,  in  eighty  wagon-loads, 
carted  to  Paris  and  sold  at  public  auction  ;  his  village 
burned  ;  his  escutcheon  publicly  broken  to  pieces ;  and 
his  noble  bearing  under  it  all.  The  varying  conditions 
of  the  churches  and  their  leaders,  under  the  caprices 
of  Catherine,  make  too  long  and  sad  a  story,  up  to  the 
peace  of  St.  Germain  in  1570.  Then  came  the  bloody 
crisis,  in  which  the  red  hand  of  Rome  descended  with 
the  great  destructive  blow  from  which,  to  this  day,  the 
Protestantism  of  France  has  never  recovered. 

At  the  beginning  of  Charles's  reign  Catherine  un- 
dertook to  break  the  power  of  the  Guises  by  allying 
herself  with  the  Huguenots ;  but  now  she  fears  that 
the  Huguenots  themselves  will  abridge  her  influence, 
and  plots  for  their  destruction.  The  sole  key  to  the 
woman's  inconsistency  is  her  ambition  for  personal 
power,  which  has  been  threatened  first  from  one  side, 
then  from  the  other.  The  poor  weak,  dissolute  king 
seems  to  have  formed  a  strange  liking  for  Coligny,  in 
spite  of  his  Huguenotism.  The  brutal  mother  sees  a 
way  through  her  son's  fondness  for  accomplishing  her 
cherished  purposes.  She  will  have  the  Huguenot  lead- 


ST.  BARTHOLOMEW.  261 

ers  at  court  for  a  grand  holiday,  and  through  them 
deal  the  churches  her  fatal  blow.  Young  Henry 
of  Navarre  will  probably  come  to  the  throne  of  France, 
and  he  must  marry  into  her  family ;  the  throne  must 
not  pass  out  of  her  control.  Henry  of  Navarre  is 
known  as  a  Huguenot.  What  a  bright  thought,  to 
wed  him  to  her  daughter,  and  have  all  the  Huguenot 
leaders,  high  with  hopes  for  the  betterment  of  their 
condition,  come  to  the  wedding,  and  then  give  a  signal 
for  their  slaughter,  beginning  with  Coligny !  A  plot 
worthy  of  Catherine  de  Medicis, —  worthy  to  crown 
the  long  series  of  bloody  deeds  which  have  made  her 
family  infamous  from  the  days  of  Savonarola !  That 
is  the  plan,  and  it  is  carried  out  to  the  letter.  The 
wedding-day  comes :  the  Huguenots  are  there,  Coligny 
and  all  the  rest.  Some  bungler  tries  to  shoot  him  by 
stealth  and  fails,  but  it  is  only  a  short  reprieve. 

The  dawn  of  St.  Bartholomew  breaks,  August  24, 
1572.  The  awful  tolling  of  the  bell  is  heard.  The 
assassins  begin.  Coligny,  first  pierced  with  sword- 
thrusts,  is  thrown  to  the  pavement,  unrecognizable. 
Guise,  grim  master  of  ceremonies,  stoops  and  wipes 
the  blood  from  the  face  of  the  murdered  man  to 
reassure  himself  that  it  is  the  corpse  of  his  enemy, 
then  kicks  it,  and  leaves  it  to  be  beheaded  by  the  mob, 
dragged  headless  through  the  streets  of  Paris,  and 
finallv  hung  by  the  heels  upon  the  common  gallows. 

Then  all  through  the  sweet  dawning  light,  and  all 
that  summer's  day,  and  day  after  day,  through  Paris, 
through  France,  the  work  proceeds,  as  if  cruelty  ran 
on  electric  cords,  till  seventy  thousand,1  of  all  ages,  are 

1  This  is  Sully's  estimate  ;  De  Thou  says  twenty  thousand  ; 
some  authorities  fix  the  number  as  high  as  one  hundred  thou- 
sand. 


202  COLIGNY. 

slain,  —  lusty  manhood,  and  hoary  hairs,  babyhood  at 
the  breast,  indiscriminately  slaughtered,  —  until  tiger- 
ish fury  is  wearied  out,  and  earth,  burdened  with  the 
dead,  can  bear  no  more. 

And  yet  that  church  lived  on ;  it  lives  to-day.  It 
sent  even  across  the  sea  a  precious  contribution  to  the 
faith  and  devotion  of  American  liberty  and  American 
religion.  To  it  and  that  long  series  of  troubles  which 
led  to  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  we  owe 
those  names  which  shine  like  stars  in  the  sky  of  our 
history :  the  Bowdoins,  and  Faneuils,  and  Boudinots  ; 
the  Sigourneys,  and  Jays,  and  De  Lanceys  ;  the 
Pintards,  and  Bayards,  and  Grimkes,  —  a  cordon  of 
brilliants,  stretching,  like  the  beacons  of  our  eastern 
coast,  from  Cape  Elizabeth  to  Florida.  And  that 
church  is  rising  again.  A  grand  idea  is  easy  to  start 
with  Frenchmen,  but  hard  to  kill.  France  is  one  of 
those  nations  of  which  it  is  surely  said,  "  The  king- 
doms of  this  world  shall  become  the  kingdom  of  our 
Lord  and  of  his  Christ,  and  He  -shall  reign  forever 
and  ever." 


XL 

WILLIAM  BREWSTER. 
A.  D.  1560-1644. 

As  on  the  first  Christians  in  Antioch  and  in  Rome,  before  churches 
existed  there,  the  duty  was  incumbent  of  forming  churches  according  to 
the  mind  of  Christ,  so  on  them  in  England,  where  Christ's  institution 
had  been  subverted,  and  a  different  institution  set  up  in  its  place,  there 
was  incumbent  a  duty  of  re-formation  of  churches.  —  DR.  LEONARD 
BACON. 


XI. 

WILLIAM  BREWSTER. 
A.  D.  1560-1644. 

IN  the  preceding  chapters  I  have  traced  the  Refor- 
mation movement,  as  it  were,  by  a  broken  line  upon 
the  map  of  history.  It  has  not  always  been  possible 
to  see,  or  even  to  conjecture,  the  connection  which 
doubtless  existed,  binding  that  movement  in  different 
lands  and  through  different  ages  into  perfect  in- 
tegrity. The  current  has  sometimes  seemed  to  be 
underground,  and  not  traceable  at  all ;  not  seldom 
traceable  only  obscurely ;  at  other  times  obviously 
unbroken  through  protracted  periods  and  over  long 
distances.  We  saw  its  faint  rise  in  the  uplands  of 
modern  history,  among  the  Mystics  of  the  thirteenth 
and  fourteenth  centuries,  where  the  footsteps  of  the 
ordinary  traveler  do  not  penetrate ;  its  somewhat 
broader  and  more  concrete  development  under  Wic- 
lif  in  England,  and  Hus  in  Bohemia,  and  Savonarola 
in  Italy,  until  it  took  on  more  of  a  national  aspect  in 
the  German  Reformation  under  Luther,  the  Anglican 
under  Henry  VIII.,  the  Genevan  under  Calvin,  the 
Scottish  under  Knox,  and  the  French  under  Coligny 
and  the  Huguenots.  And  now  we  prick  the  chart  in 
a  strange  quarter.  The  movement  takes  us  away  from 
the  map  of  Europe,  to  which  we  have  been  confined 
hitherto,  across  a  thousand  leagues  of  almost  un- 


266  WILLIAM  BREWSTER. 

traveled  sea,  to  desolate  and  almost  unknown  shores. 
And  yet,  although  the  break  in  our  line  is,  geograph- 
ically, so  unprecedented  and  enormous,  we  are  even 
more  certain  of  the  continuity  and  identity  of  the 
movement  than  we  were  in  passing  from  Lutterworth 
to  Prague,  from  Florence  to  Oxford,  from  Witten- 
berg to  Paris,  or  from  Geneva  to  Chatillon.  It  is 
a  long  link,  but  by  no  means  an  obscure  one,  that 
binds  Plymouth  and  American  Christianity  to  the 
Anglican  Reformation. 

I  am  to  explain  to  you  how  it  is  that  we  are  here, 
with  the  peculiarities  of  our  church  order  and  relig- 
ious life  ;  how  we  are  connected  in  this  great  chain 
of  causes  and  effects  with  the  work  of  Wiclif  and 
Hus,  and  Luther  and  Latimer.  It  is,  of  course,  a 
very  familiar  story ;  but  its  importance  to  ourselves 
and  to  our  children  can  never  be  overestimated.  It 
is  the  old  and  well-worn  title-deed  which  reveals  to 
us  and  authenticates  to  the  world  the  descent  of  our 
heritage.  Its  rehearsal  is  like  that  legal  process  of 
searching  the  title,  which,  however  often  it  has  been 
done  in  the  past,  must  needs  be  done  anew  at  every 
stage  of  the  property's  descent. 

The  Plymouth  pilgrimage,  then,  was  a  part  of  the 
great  Reformation  movement,  and  to  identify  it  as 
such  in  its  spirit  and  in  fact  is  the  principal  object  of 
tin's  lecture.  It  was  the  same  great  impulse  that 
found  expression  in  Wiclif  and  Latimer,  in  Luther 
and  Melancthon,  in  Calvin  and  Coligny,  that  brought 
our  fathers  —  William  Brewster  chief  among  them  — 
to  these  shores.  Indeed,  we  may  say  that  the  pilgrim- 
age was  the  culmination  of  the  Anglican  Reformation. 
That  reformation,  though  it  seemed  for  the  time  to 
have  culminated  in  the  severance  of  the  Church  of 


ORIGIN  OF  PURITANISM.  267 

England  from  the  papacy,  under  Henry  VIII.,  was, 
nevertheless,  very  imperfect.  It  was  little  more  than 
the  substitution  of  one  Pope  for  another.  It  made 
the  King,  instead  of  tb.3  Pope,  the  head  of  the  Church 
and  the  fountain  of  spiritual  authority.  Henry  was 
not  a  man  to  care  very  much  for  any  real  purification 
of  morals  or  renovation  of  life.  It  was  the  division 
of  power  in  his  realm  that  he  could  not  tolerate. 
And  when  he  had  once  declared  his  independence  of 
the  papacy,  he  bent  all  his  endeavors  to  make  it  real 
and  permanent.  He  took  advantage  of  the  same 
methods  which  men  use  now  —  governors  and  presi- 
dents sometimes  —  to  enlarge  and  perpetuate  their 
powers,  the  judicious  use  of  patronage  and  perquisites. 
He  dissolved  the  monasteries  and  other  religious  estab- 
lishments, and  conveyed  noble  abbeys  and  broad  do- 
mains and  fat  livings  and  rich  sinecures  to  multitudes 
of  his  favorites,  so  that  they  and  their  heirs  and  their 
innumerable  dependents  would  be  sure  to  say,  "If 
this  is  what  reformation  means,  we  will  stand  by  the 
Reformation.''  He  put  these  things,  according  to  the 
modern  political  proverb,  "  where  they  would  do  the 
most  good."  Hundreds  of  livings  which  had  hereto- 
fore been  held  under  the  appointment  of  monasteries 
and  abbots  were  now  in  the  gift  of  the  king  and  lay 
lords,  and  this  bound  Parliament  to  the  royal  interest. 
But  all  this,  of  course,  only  effected  an  external  and 
political  reformation.  A  great  change,  to  be  sure,  —  so 
great  that  the  temporary  relapse  of  a  few  years  under 
Mary  was  not  sufficient  to  countervail  it,  —  but  far 
short  of  those  grand  spiritual  results  which  were  con- 
templated by  such  men  as  Latimer  and  Ridley.  Side 
by  side  with  this  governmental  and  political  Protestant- 
ism which  was  established  under  Henry  and  Edward, 


268  WILLIAM  BREWSTER. 

and  still  further  under  Elizabeth,  and  which  had  se- 
cured all  that  it  had  desired  or  hoped  for,  there  was 
growing  a  popular  and  spiritual  Protestantism,  which 
unceasingly  longed  for  purity  in  the  worship  of  God, 
simplicity  in  the  administration  of  ordinances,  and 
renovation  of  life.  And  this  was  the  origin  of  Non- 
conformity and  Puritanism.  There  was  no  thought 
at  first  among  people  of  this  sort  of  any  separation 
from  the  Church  of  England  as  established  by  law. 
And  if  Elizabeth  and  her  silly  successor,  James  L, 
had  been  of  generous  spirit  and  of  judicious  temper, 
the  Church  of  Old  England  might  possibly  have  held 
the  churches  of  New  England  in  communion  and  alle- 
giance to  this  very  day.  But  Elizabeth  had  more  than 
the  willfulness  and  autocracy  and  tyranny  and  super- 
stition of  her  father,  and  James  surpassed  them  both 
in  all  these  qualities.  Elizabeth  compelled  the  spirit- 
ual life  of  her  realm  to  assert  itself  in  Puritanism  ;  then 
drove  Puritanism  into  separation  from  the  Church,  and 
ultimately  into  expatriation  and  pilgrimage.  The  first 
year  of  Elizabeth's  reign  was  signalized  by  an  Act  of 
Uniformity,  which  made  it  a  penal  offense  for  any 
religious  assembly,  great  or  small,  to  worship  God 
after  any  fashion  save  that  prescribed  by  the  Prayer- 
Book,  or  for  any  minister  to  conduct  a  service  of  any 
sort  save  as  accompanied  by  the  prescribed  dress, 
forms,  ceremonies,  and  words,  to  the  letter.  Some  of 
these  things  were  identified,  in  the  minds  not  only  of 
the  common  people,  but  of  the  clergy  and  prelates 
also,  with  a  superstition  which  they  abjured  and 
detested.  And  to  make  them  compulsory,  under 
penalty  of  fines  and  imprisonment,  was  a  tyranny 
no  less  than  that  which  they  had  endured  under 
Rome  itself.  Moreover,  in  all  parts  of  England  the 


ORIGIN  OF  SEPARATION.  269 

people  had  been  accustomed,  from  the  times  of  Wiclif 
and  his  poor  priests,  save  in  the  days  of  Mary,  and  even 
then  secretly,  to  meet  for  simple  worship  and  the  read- 
ing of  the  Word.  And  now  this  Protestant  queen  — 
a  "  petticoated  Pope  "  she  has  been  called  —  made  this 
simple  act  a  crime  on  the  part  of  any  of  her  subjects, 
high  or  low.  Plainly  the  Reformation  had  gone  as  far 
as  it  was  likely  to  go  in  the  national  church.  They 
must  steal  their  liberty,  or  look  for  it  in  separation, 
and  perhaps  in  exile  and  banishment.  The  Act  of 
Supremacy  had  empowered  the  queen  to  establish 
what  was  known  as  the  Court  of  High  Commission, 
whose  members  were  to  be  appointed  at  her  absolute 
discretion,  and  whose  powers  were  scarcely  less  than 
those  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition.  "They  were  au- 
thorized to  make  inquiry  concerning  all  heretical 
opinions,  seditious  books,  contempts,  conspiracies,  false 
rumors  or  talks,  slanderous  words  and  sayings ;  to 
punish  all  persons  willfully  absent  from  church  or 
divine  service  established  by  law ;  to  visit  and  reform 
all  heresies  and  schisms ;  to  call  before  them  all  per- 
sons suspected  of  ecclesiastical  offenses,  and  examine 
them,  and,  according  to  their  answers,  to  punish  them 
by  excommunication,  by  fire,  or  by  unlimited  imprison- 
ment." l  Any  three  members  of  this  commission, 
one  being  a  bishop,  might  constitute  a  court  with  full 
powers,  might  command  the  services  of  sheriffs  and 
justices,  for  the  apprehension  and  punishment  of  any 
persons  in  any  part  of  the  kingdom.  In  the  reign  of 
Mary  multitudes  of  ministers  had  fled  to  the  continent 
to  escape  persecution  at  her  hands,  and  these  had  come 
under  the  influence  of  the  German  and  Swiss  reform- 
ers, whose  views  of  church  government  were  not  pre- 
1  Dr.  Bacon,  Genesis  of  New  England  Churches,  pp.  78,  79. 


270  WILLIAM  BREWSTER. 

latic.  There  had  been  congregations  of  these  English 
exiles  in  Frankfort,  Zurich,  Geneva,  and  other  places, 
many  of  whom  had  returned  upon  the  accession  of 
Elizabeth,  expecting  that  the  Protestant  queen  would 
pursue  a  liberal  policy.  They  were  disappointed,  and 
the  High  Commission  had  its  hands  full  in  dealing 
with  them.  Many  of  them  found  themselves  vexed 
with  prosecutions,  their  ministers  suspended  and  thrown 
into  jails  and  prisons,  for  Non-conformity.  It  is  no 
wonder  that,  under  these  conditions,  men  began  se- 
riously to  inquire  whether  the  English  Church  were 
not  ranging  itself,  in  its  spirit  and  its  methods,  along 
with  the  Romish  Church,  whose  authority  it  had  re- 
jected ;  and  whether  the  one  had  any  better  right  than 
the  other  to  claim  to  be  exclusively  the  Church  of 
Jesus  Christ  on  earth,  or  even  in  the  English  nation  ; 
and  whether,  also,  if  a  company  of  sincere  believers 
anywhere  should  statedly  meet  for  religious  worship 
and  the  observance  of  Christian  ordinances,  it  might 
not  claim  to  be  a  church  of  Jesus  Christ.  And  for 
daring  to  assert  and  defend  this  as  their  theory  of  the 
Church,  men  were  hanged,  in  the  days  of  good  Queen 
Bess,  in  England.1  And  for  daring  to  put  their  theory 
into  practice,  many  were  seized  and  imprisoned,  in 
irons,  for  four  or  five  years  together,  without  trial,  or 
charge,  or  privilege  of  bail.  Many  aged  widows  and 
old  men  and  young  maidens  were  thrust  into  crowded 
jails,  where  the  fever  raged,  and  miserably  perished. 
Others  were  beaten  almost  to  death  with  cudgels,  and 
this  under  the  authority  of  the  Head  of  the  Reformed 
Church  of  England.  And  yet  the  heresy  which,  let 

1  See  Froude's  History  of  England,  conclusion  ;  Dr.  Wad- 
dington's  Penry  •  Bacon's  Genesis  of  New  England  Churches, 
chaps,  viii.,  Lx. 


SCROOBY.  271 

Us  remember,  if  we  are  ever  tempted  to  be  of  a  per- 
secuting spirit,  we  now  call  orthodoxy  grew,  as  heresy 
always  will  under  such  treatment;  so  that,  as  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh  said,  arguing  against  a  bill  in  Par- 
liament for  the  suppression  of  the  Separatists,  "  there 
are  near  twenty  thousand  of  them  in  England." 

When  James  I.  came  to  the  throne,  upon  the  death 
of  Elizabeth  (1603),  matters  grew  even  worse.  The 
monarch  avowed  his  purpose  to  make  the  Separatists 
conform,  or  "  to  harry  them  out  of  the  land."  And 
because  he  was  as  good,  or  rather  as  bad,  as  his  word, 
New  England  was  first  settled  as  it  was. 

At  this  time  there  was  standing  in  an  insignificant 
village  in  the  North  of  England,  Scrooby  by  name, 
on  the  great  post-road  from  London  to  Berwick,  an 
ancient  manor-house  which  had  belonged  to  the  arch- 
bishops of  York.  To  it  the  great  Wolsey  had  re- 
treated in  his  disgrace,  to  meditate  upon  the  instabil- 
ity of  human  greatness  and  the  uncertainty  of  royal 
favor.  Henry  VIII.  himself  had  lodged  there.  Eliz- 
abeth had  desired  to  gain  possession  of  it  for  her  fa- 
vorite, the  Earl  of  Leicester,  but  the  archbishop  would 
not  be  persuaded  to  part  with  it.  Of  late  years,  how- 
ever, the  old  manor-house  had  become  alienated  from 
the  see,  and  at  this  time  of  which  I  speak  was  occu- 
pied under  lease  by  one  William  Brewster.  He  had 
been  a  man  of  affairs  under  Elizabeth,  and  had  seen 
much  of  court  and  diplomatic  life  at  home  and  abroad. 
Educated  at  the  University  of  Cambridge,  he  possessed 
the  knowledge  of  books,  in  addition  to  that  better 
knowledge  gained  by  experience  and  travel  and  large 
intercourse  with  men.  In  the  "Old  Colony  Records" 
there  is  an  inventory  of  his  books,  numbering  nearly 
three  hundred  volumes,  of  which  sixty-four  are  in  the 


272  WILLIAM  BREWSTER. 

learned  languages,  —  a  library  more  considerable  for 
that  day  than  one  of  two  thousand  would  be  now. 
When  he  was  about  twenty-five  years  of  age  he  en- 
tered the  service  of  Mr.  William  Davison,  one  of 
Queen  Elizabeth's  ambassadors,  and  afterwards  one 
of  her  principal  secretaries  of  state.  He  was  thus 
brought  while  a  young  man  into  acquaintance  with  the 
splendid  court  of  Elizabeth.  He  must  have  met  with 
Sir  Philip  Sidney,  with  Walsingham  and  Cecil,  Lord 
Burleigh,  not  improbably  with  Sir  Walter  Ifeleigh 
and  Shakespeare  and  Bacon  and  Spenser  and  Dray- 
ton.  Through  many  years  of  faithful  service  he  was 
with  the  secretary,  going  with  him  upon  important  for- 
eign embassies,  and  serving  him  as  under-secretary, 
and  trusted,  as  Governor  Bradford  says,  "  above  all 
others  that  were  about  him,  employed  in  matters  of 
greatest  trust  and  secrecy,  esteemed  rather  as  a  son 
than  as  a  servant ;  and  for  his  wisdom  and  godliness, 
the  secretary  would  converse  with  him  more  like  a 
friend  and  familiar  than  a  master."  1  And  what  man- 
ner of  man  this  young  William  Brewster  was  still  fur- 
ther appears  from  the  fact  that  when  his  patron  fell 
into  misfortune  and  unmerited  disgrace  this  friend  did 
not  desert  him.  He  became  involved  in  the  unhappy 
affair  of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots.  When  Elizabeth 
had  determined  upon  Mary's  execution,  she  ordered 
Mr.  Secretary  Davison  to  make  out  the  death-warrant. 
She  signed  it,  and  bade  him  take  it  to  the  lord  chan- 
cellor for  the  great  seal,  which  he  did,  and  it  was 
sealed  and  executed  accordingly.  The  execution  ac- 
complished and  poor  Mary's  head  off,  Elizabeth  chided 
the  secretary  for  his  haste  in  obeying  her  own  com- 

1  Governor  Bradford's  "  Memoir  of  Elder  Brewster,"  Young's 
Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrims,  p.  4G3. 


QUEEN'S  POST.  273 

mands,  and,  to  throw  dust  into  the  eyes  of  her  con- 
science, deprived  him  of  his  office,  confiscated  his 
property,  and  thrust  him  into  the  Tower.  But  Brew- 
ster  was  no  fair-weather  friend.  "  He  remained,"  as 
Governor  Bradford  tells  us,  with  the  fallen  secretary, 
"  some  good  time  after  that  he  was  put  from  his  place, 
doing  him  many  faithful  offices  of  service  in  the  time 
of  his  troubles."  l  But  this  was  the  turning-point  in 
Brewster's  history.  He  was  wanted  for  higher  service 
than  any  that  he  could  render  at  the  court  of  Eliza- 
beth. There  was  a  little  company  of  persecuted  Chris- 
tian people  up  in  the  North  of  England,  of  whom  as 
yet  he  knew  nothing,  they  knowing  as  little  of  him, 
who  even  now  were  needing  his  help.  He  was  not  a 
Separatist  as  yet,  though  a  Puritan  in  his  principles, 
doubtless,  as  his  patron  the  secretary  had  been.  At 
this  crisis  in  his  affairs,  probably  through  the  in- 
fluence of  some  court  friend,  he  was  appointed  one 
of  the  queen's  posts  on  the  great  high  road  from 
London  to  York  and  Edinburgh  ;  and  the  next  that 
we  hear  of  him  he  is  domiciled  in  that  capacity  in  the 
archbishop's  old  manor-house  at  Scrooby.  He  is  not 
to  be  thought  of  by  us  as  merely  "  the  postmaster  of 
Scrooby."  Scrooby  had  little  to  do  with  his  office,  or 
his  office  with  Scrooby.  There  was  not  then,  as  now, 
a  post-office  in  every  village.  The  service  was  one  of 
great  trust  and  responsibility,  and  more  for  the  use 
of  the  queen,  her  court  and  parliament  and  govern- 
ment officers,  than  for  the  general  use  of  the  people. 
It  was  not  a  provision  for  private  correspondence. 
Here,  as  the  queen's  or  king's  officer,  —  for  he  held 
over  under  James,  —  he  tarried  for  some  thirteen  years. 

1  Governor    Bradford's    "  Memoir   of    Elder    Brewster,"   in 
Young's  Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrims,  p.  464. 
13 


274  WILLIAM  BREWSTER. 

Here  he  was  married  and  children  were  born  unto 
him  ;  here  he  was  a  man  of  note,  and  made  his  influ- 
ence felt  for  good  through  all  the  country  around; 
and  here,  better  than  all,  he  became  godfather  and 
protector  to  the  first  Christian  church  of  New  Eng- 
land. Seeing,  year  after  year,  the  suspension,  depri- 
vation, and  silencing  of  ministers  whom  he  knew, 
upon  whose  ministry  he  had  attended,  and  the  contin- 
ued persecution  of  men  for  no  other  reason  than  their 
desire  to  live  soberly,  righteously,  and  godly,  and  to 
worship  in  their  own  way,  and  despairing  of  any 
change  for  the  better  in  the  Church,  he  quietly  with- 
drew, and  associated  himself  with  a  little  company  of 
men  and  women  who  worshiped  in  the  neighborhood. 
They  had  a  deposed  rector  for  their  pastor,  and  for 
their  teacher  a  man  of  gentle,  ingenuous  spirit,  whose 
name,  John  Robinson ,  we  have  all  learned  to  speak 
with  loving  reverence,  as  though  he  were  still  the  pas- 
tor and  teacher  of  us  all.  "  They  joined  themselves 
(by  a  covenant  of  the  Lord)  into  a  church  estate  in 
the  fellowship  of  the  gospell,  to  walk  in  all  his  wayes 
made  known,  or  to  be  made  known  unto  them  accord- 
ing to  their  best  endeavors,  whatsoever  it  should  cost 
them,  the  Lord  assisting  them."  1  They  completed 
their  organization  as  a  separate  church  by  choosing 
Brewster  himself  as  their  ruling  elder,  and  thenceforth 
worshiped  with  him  in  the  old  manor-house,  which 
had  been  in  turn  the  lodging-place  of  royalty  and  the 
abode  of  the  proudest  prelate  that  England  ever  saw, 
but  which  had  never  before  sheltered  three  as  noble 
souls  as  John  Robinson,  William  Brewster,  and  Wil- 
liam Bradford. 

1  Governor   Bradford's  "History  of    Plymouth   Colony,"   in 
Young's  Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrims,  p.  21.     This  was  in  160L\ 


THE  BODY  MORE  THAN  THE  MEMBER.    275 

But  a  company  of  people  thus  asserting  their  right 
to  exist  as  a  separate  church,  and  meeting  regularly 
for  worship  and  for  instruction,  could  hardly  expect 
to  defy  the  Act  of  Uniformity  with  impunity.  They 
had  need  to  count  the  cost,  and  see  whether,  with  their 
little  handful,  they  would  be  able  to  meet  the  king, 
who  would  come  against  them  with  his  twenty  thousand. 
They  speedily  found  that  James's  threat  to  "make 
them  conform  or  harry  them  out "  was  no  meaningless 
piece  of  bravado.  Harry  them  he  did  forthwith ;  the 
whole  machinery  of  persecution  was  set  in  motion  for 
their  special  benefit.  "  Some,"  says  one  of  their  num- 
ber, "  were  taken  and  clapt  into  prison  ;  others  had 
their  houses  beset  and  watched  night  and  day,  they 
barely  escaping ;  while  the  most  part  were  fain  to  fly 
and  leave  all,  —  habitations,  friends,  and  means  of  liv- 
ing." Under  these  various  persecutions  Brewster  was 
their  strong  stay,  his  friendship  the  one  visible  bond 
of  union.  He  had  been  long  in  coming  into  this  re- 
lationship with  them,  and  when  he  came  it  was  for  a 
lifelong  union,  an  inviolable  marriage,  for  richer,  for 
poorer,  to  love  and  to  cherish  till  death  should  part. 
There  was,  and  is,  something  as  grand  as  it  is  simple 
about  the  pilgrim  view  of  the  church  relationship.  It 
is  not  a  sentimental  liking  for  an  institution ;  it  is  not 
an  artificial  and  superficial  union  founded  upon  some 
preterite  history  :  but  it  is  a  giving  up  of  the  living 
man  to  other  living  men,  wholly,  the  interest  of  all 
the  interest  of  each,  and  the  corporate  spiritual  life 
of  the  body  dearer  to  each  than  any  or  all  separate 
and  individual  interests  can  be.  And  so  it  at  once 
became  the  question  of  all  questions  with  these  men, 
not,  How  shall  I  personally  escape  the  storm  of  royal 
and  ecclesiastical  wrath  ?  That  question  would  have 


276  WILLIAM  BREWSTER. 

been  easily  answered  :  I  will  take  myself  into  a  strict 
personal  retirement,  and  nourish  my  spiritual  life  in 
solitude  and  safety.  That,  however,  was  not  the  ques- 
tion, but,  How  shall  we  save  and  nourish  this  corporate 
life  ?  Here  is  a  church  of  Jesus  Christ,  a  compacted 
spiritual  and  social  force  for  the  kingdom  of  God : 
how  shall  we  save  it  to  the  world  ?  It  is  a  unity  more 
precious  than  any  solitary  unit  of  selfhood  can  be. 
See  how  the  reasoning  and  conduct  of  these  men  were 
along  the  line  of  the  principle  that  the  individual  is 
primarily  for  the  church,  and  only  secondarily  is  the 
church  for  the  individual.  And  so  they  said,  The 
church  must  not  be  dissipated,  but  must  move  as  one 
man,  even  though  it  be  to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  To 
the  ends  of  the  earth  it  proved  ultimately  to  be.  But 
whither  first  ?  Why,  to  the  nearest  place  where  the 
church  could  be  permitted  to  maintain  its  precious 
corporate  life,  and  that  was  to  the  free  states  of  Hol- 
land, just  across  the  German  Ocean.  There,  they  had 
heard,  was  freedom  for  all.  But  what  must  they  per- 
sonally sacrifice  to  preserve  this  precious  corporate 
force,  the  life  of  the  church?  First  of  all,  native 
land ;  for  how  long  they  could  not  tell,  perhaps  for- 
ever. It  turned  out  to  be  forever.  They  must  go  to 
a  strange  people,  of  strange  language,  of  different  cus- 
toms ;  probably  to  new  and  unwonted  employments ; 
to  a  country  that  had  just  been,  and  might  soon  again 
be,  the  scene  of  bloody  war.  As  Bradford  said,1  "  to 
go  into  a  country  they  knew  not  but  by  hearsay, 
where  they  must  learn  a  new  language  and  get  their 
livings  they  knew  not  how,  seemed  an  adventure  al- 
most desperate.  .  .  .  But  these  things  did  not  dismay 

1  Bradford's   History  of  Plymouth   Colony,  ut  supra,  pp.  25, 


DIFFICULTIES   OF  ESCAPE.  277 

them,  although  they  did  sometimes  trouble  them  ;  for 
their  desires  were  set  in  the  ways  of  God  and  to  enjoy 
his  ordinances.  They  rested  in  his  providence,  and 
knew  whom  they  had  believed."  But  how  long  would 
it  take  them,  a  few  men  and  women  with  a  rather 
meagre  array  of  worldly  gear,  to  get  across  to  Hol- 
land, a  few  hours'  sail,  with  their  little  church  ?  Brew- 
ster,  who  was  their  man  of  affairs,  had  chartered  a 
ship  that  could  take  them  all.  But  it  was  necessary 
to  be  cautious ;  the  ports  were  closed  against  Separa- 
tists. If  their  going  were  to  be  bruited  abroad  they 
would  be  in  danger  of  seizure  and  imprisonment. 
They  managed  to  embark,  and  thought  they  were  safe. 
But  their  captain  betrayed  them  to  the  authorities,  and 
they  were  taken  from  their  ship  in  open  boats,  their 
persons  searched  and  rifled,  their  women  treated  with 
gross  indignity,  and  their  leaders,  Brewster  and  Brad- 
ford among  them,  "  clapt  into  prison."  Thus,  for  six 
months,  the  attempt  was  a  miserable  failure.  Had 
their  church  any  existence  then?  Where  was  it? 
One  member  here,  another  there  ;  some  in  prison  cells, 
some  in  voluntary  hiding.  There  was  no  edifice. 
There  was  no  sign  of  visible  organism.  Where  was 
the  little  church  of  Scpooby,  that  afterwards  became 
the  church  of  Plymouth  and  "  the  mother  of  us  all  "  ? 
It  was  where  the  first  Church  of  Christ  on  earth  was 
when  its  head  and  leader  was  in  the  Arimathean's 
tomb,  and  the  disciples  had  scattered  and  fled.  It  was 
in  the  secret  thought,  and  unshaken  purpose,  and  un- 
decaying  affection,  and  unchanged  spiritual  loyalty  of 
their  locally  scattered  but  secretly  united  souls.  They 
were  still  at  one,  and  the  next  spring  they  tried  again. 
But,  with  all  their  caution,  their  plans  were  discov- 
ered and  their  purposes  well-nigh  defeated.  It  was  a 


278  WILLIAM  BREWSTER. 

broken,  fragmentary  flight,  in  which  husbands  were 
separated  from  wives  and  parents  from  children  ;  some 
were  taken  and  subjected  again  to  fines  and  imprison- 
ments, and  after  long  delay  released ;  some  were  ex- 
posed to  a  tempestuous  voyage  of  fourteen  days  in 
crossing  that  little  patch  of  water.  What,  through  all 
these  tribulations,  sustained  their  courage  and  kept 
their  purpose  firm?  Nothing  but  the  consciousness 
that  they  were  on  the  side  of  God  and  everlasting 
truth,  and  God  was  with  them.  "  And  so  it  came  to 
pass,"  as  St.  Paul  says,  "  that  they  escaped  all  safe  to 
land,"  —  words  of  which  Bradford's  read  like  a  para- 
phrase :  "  In  the  end  they  all  got  over,  some  at  one 
time,  some  at  another,  and  met  together  again  with 
no  small  rejoicing." 

In  Amsterdam  they  were  now  (summer  of  1608). 
But  for  no  very  long  time,  —  a  year  or  thereabouts. 
Other  Separatists  were  there.  In  fact,  Amsterdam 
had  become  a  harbor  for  persecuted  exiles,  not  only 
from  other  parts  of  England,  but  from  all  parts  of  the 
Continent.  There  were  other  churches  there  founded 
after  the  fashion  of  their  own.  But  few  churches  of 
that  or  of  any  other  day  were  so  fortunate  as  to  have 
for  their  leading  spirits  such  men  as  John  Robinson 
and  Elder  Brewster.  And  among  these  Separatists  al- 
ready on  the  ground  were  uneasy,  contentious,  crotch- 
ety spirits,  who  were  embroiling  their  brethren  and 
keeping  them  in  hot  water  upon  petty  questions  about 
peculiarities  of  female  dress  :  whether  the  pastor's  wife 
should  wear  whalebones,  and  cork  heels  upon  her 
shoes,  and  other  equally  important  matters.  To  our 
Pilgrims  the  causes  of  strife  seemed  so  pitiful,  and  the 
minds  which  could  be  exercised  by  them  so  petty,  that 
they  speedily  moved  their  church  forty  miles  away  to 


LEYDEN.  279 

the  ancient  city  of  Leyden,  where  now  their  home  was 
to  be  for  eleven  years.  Already  had  they  well  earned 
the  name  of  Pilgrims. 

It  was  a  famous  era  in  the  history  of  Holland  and 
in  the  history  of  human  liberty  at  which  our  little 
church  came  to  Leyden.  It  was  just  at  the  close  of 
what  has  been  called  "  the  most  glorious  war  for  lib- 
erty ever  waged."  It  was  the  very  year  in  which  the 
grand  twelve  years'  truce  between  Spain  and  her  re- 
volted colonies  had  been  negotiated  and  ratified.  Was 
there  a  divine  prearrangement  in  this,  that  the  truce 
was  made  just  to  cover  the  period  during  which  the 
Pilgrims  were  to  remain ;  that  peace  should  be  insured 
for  so  long  a  time,  when  peace,  after  all  its  turmoils, 
was  what  the  little  church  most  desired  and  needed  for 
its  compacting,  its  growth,  and  its  influence  ?  And 
Leyden  was  a  noble  city,  with  its  famous  university. 
Here  Arminius  had  taught,  and  founded  that  system 
which  has  shared  with  Calvin's  in  the  disputes  of  two 
hundred  years.  Here  too  Scaliger  had  taught,  and 
Grotius  was  already  making  his  contribution  to  the 
fame  of  the  city  and  its  university.  Years  of  peace 
and  of  honor,  and  yet  of  struggle  too,  were  these  years 
of  its  Leyden  life  to  the  little  church.  John  Robinson, 
who  had  been  a  fellow  of  his  college  at  home,  was 
loved  and  honored  here.  He  was  taken  into  the  bosom 
of  the  university,  which  became  a  second  Alma  Mater 
to  him,  was  made  free  of  its  privileges  and  a  member 
of  its  society.1  Brewster,  whose  life  at  college  and  at 
court,  and  whose  experience  on  his  embassy  to  Hol- 
land years  before,  had  given  him  much  advantage  in 
his  return,  was  an  ornament  to  the  little  band  of  ex- 
iles, in  the  eyes  of  the  strangers  around  them.  He 

1  George  Sumner's  Memoirs  of  the  Pilgrims  at  Leyden.  p.  18. 


280  WILLIAM  BREWSTER. 

grew  famous  among  the  students  as  a  teacher  of  his 
own  language  through  his  knowledge  of  Latin,  which 
all  could  understand.  As  for  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
company,  they  peacefully  and  quietly  adapted  them- 
selves to  their  new  conditions,  learning  the  trades  and 
arts  of  the  people  among  whom  they  sojourned,  as  dy- 
ers and  weavers,  wool-carders  and  printers ;  betaking 
themselves  to  such  employments  as  they  could  find, 
without  being  a  burden  to  any,  and  eating  their  bread 
in  honesty,  and  in  gladness  and  singleness  of  heart.  It 
was  a  peaceful  harbor  after  the  storm.  There,  in  their 
own  language,  "  they  enjoyed  much  sweet  and  delight- 
ful society  and  spiritual  comfort  together  in  the  ways 
of  God,  and  lived  together  in  peace  and  love  and  holi- 
ness." l  They  deserve  to  be  called  the  Huguenots  of 
England,  and  William  Brewster  was  their  Coligny. 

One  by  one  other  dear  English  names  were  added 
to  the  roll  of  the  little  church  while  it  tarried  in  Ley- 
den,  each  one  no  doubt  awakening  and  then  in  turn 
assuaging  the  homesickness  which  they  must  have 
often  felt.  It  was  here  that  Robert  Cushman  joined 
them,  who  preached  the  first  sermon  that  was  printed 
in  New  England  ;  and  Miles  Standish,  who  had  fought 
for  the  Dutch  against  Spain,  and  who  could  read  Cae- 
sar and  fight  as  well  as  he,  and  who  was  to  be  in 
future  years  their  defender  against  the  savages  of  the 

i  Governor  Bradford's  History,  ut  supra,  p.  36.  Bradford 
further  records  a  beautiful  tribute  to  their  social  influence  : 
"  The  magistrates  of  the  city,  about  the  time  of  their  coming 
away,  or  a  little  before,  in  the  public  place  of  justice,  gave  this 
commendable  testimony  of  them,  in  reproof  of  the  Walloons, 
who  were  of  the  French  Church  in  the  city.  '  These  English,' 
said  they,  '  have  lived  amongst  us  now  this  twelve  years,  and  yet 
we  never  had  any  suit  or  accusation  come  against  any  of  them. 
But  your  strifes  and  quarrels  are  continual,' "  etc.  Id.  p.  39. 


LEYDEN  NOT  THEIR  REST.      "281 

New  World ;  and  John  Carver,  who  was  to  be  their 
first  governor  over  the  seas ;  and  Edward  Winslow, 
who  was  to  be  one  of  his  successors.  And  so  they 
grew  into  what  was,  for  a  colony  of  exiles,  a  strong 
congregation,  worshiping  in  the  house  of  their  pastor 
twice  on  the  first  day  of  the  week  and  once  in  the  in- 
tervening time ;  ecclesiastically  isolated,  but  by  that 
very  isolation  driven  more  closely  in  upon  the  resources 
of  their  own  fellowship,  and  growing  strong  in  the 
tenderness  of  the  bond  which  made  them  one  in  Christ 
Jesus. 

The  influences  around  them  were  friendly,  as  I  have 
said.  They  won  the  respect  and  love  of  their  Dutch 
neighbors.  But  in  the  course  of  a  few  years  they  be- 
gan to  feel  that  this  was  not,  could  not  be,  their  rest. 
The  preservation  and  perpetuity  of  their  church  was 
ever  uppermost  in  their  thoughts.  It  was  a  light 
which  must  be  kept  burning,  it  was  the  hope  of  their 
children,  it  was  one  of  the  hopes  of  the  world.  They 
wanted  it  to  continue,  to  be  a  refuge  for  others  who 
should  be  like-minded  with  themselves. 

"First"  they  said,1  "the  hardness  of  their  present 
place  and  country,  to  them  so  great,  was  such  that 
few  would  come  to  continue  with  them ;  while  could  a 
place  of  better  and  easier  living  be  found,  such  dis- 
couragements would  be  removed. 

"  Second.  Though  in  general  their  people  bore 
all  difficulties  cheerfully  and  resolutely  in  their  best 
strength,  old  age  was  coming  on  some,  great  and  con- 
tinued labors  and  trials  were  hastening  it  before  its 
time  upon  others,  and  it  was  apparent  that  in  the 
present  state  of  things  there  was  danger  of  soon  being 
scattered  or  of  sinking  under  their  burdens. 

1  Condensed  from  Bradford,  ut  supra,  pp.  45-47. 


282  WILLIAM  BREWSTER. 

"  Third.  Over  them  was  the  task-master  Necessity, 
forcing  them  to  become  task-masters  not  only  to  ser- 
vants, but  in  a  measure  to  their  children,  wounding 
the  heart  of  many  a  father  and  mother  and  producing 
sad  consequences.  Children  of  the  best  dispositions 
and  gracious  inclinations,  who  were  learning  to  bear 
the  yoke  in  their  youth  and  willing  to  share  in  their 
parents'  labors,  were  yet  at  times  so  oppressed  by  labor 
that,  though  with  minds  free  and  willing,  their  bodies 
became  bowed  under  the  weight  and  early  disfigured, 
the  vigor  of  nature  being  exhausted  in  the  very  bud. 
And  what  was  worse,  many  of  their  children,  by  the 
surrounding  temptations  and  the  great  licentiousness 
of  the  youth  of  the  country  and  their  evil  example, 
were  drawn  away,  grew  headstrong,  leaving  their  par- 
ents: some  becoming  soldiers,  others  sailing  on  dis- 
tant voyages,  others  taking  to  worse  courses,  to  their 
parents'  grief,  their  souls'  danger,  and  the  dishonor  of 
God,  all  foreboding  a  degenerate  and  corrupt  poster- 
ity." And  to  this  they  added  1  "  their  great  desire  to 
live  under  the  protection  of  England  and  to  retain  the 
language  and  name  of  Englishmen,  their  inability  to 
give  their  children  here  such  an  education  as  they 
themselves  had  received,  and  also  their  grief  at  the 
profanation  of  the  Sabbath  in  Holland." 

And,  finally,  grandest  thought  of  all  in  the  hearts 
of  these  generous,  self-sacrificing  men,  "  A  great  hope 
and  inward  zeal  they  had  of  laying  some  good  foun- 
dation for  propagating  and  advancing  the  kingdom  of 
Christ  in  remote  parts  of  the  world ;  yea,  though  they 
should  be  but  stepping-stones  unto  others  for  the  per- 
forming of  so  great  a  work." 

1  These  supplementary  reasons  are  not  given  by  Bradford,  but 
added  by  Edward  Winslow. 


THE  MAYFLOWER.  283 

And  whither  should  they  go,  and  how  procure  the 
means  for  such  an  undertaking  ?  At  length  all  pos- 
sible quarters  being  canvassed,  they  send  their  mes- 
sengers to  the  Virginia  Company  in  London  to  apply 
for  a  grant  to  plant  themselves  under  its  general  gov- 
ernment, and  to  petition  his  majesty  for  a  grant  of 
liberty  or  freedom  in  religion. 

The  Virginia  Company  of  course  entertained  the 
proposition  eagerly,  but  no  toleration  under  the  seal 
of  the  king  was  to  be  thought  of.  All  that  could  be 
elicited  from  that  quarter  was  an  assurance  that  the 
king  and  the  bishops  "  would  wink  at  their  depar- 
ture." 

But  the  feuds  and  factions  of  the  Virginia  Company 
were  such  in  the  arrangement  of  the  matter  that  their 
charter  was  long  delayed,  and  finally  never  used.  An 
agreement  was  entered  into  with  certain  merchant  ad- 
venturers, whose  terms  were  exceedingly  oppressive, 
by  which  the  Mayflower  was  to  take  the  company 
on  board  at  Southampton,  and  the  Speedwell  was 
to  bring  them  to  that  port  and  keep  them  company 
across  the  sea.  The  church  did  not  propose  to  go  in 
its  integrity,  —  only  those  who  freely  offered  them- 
selves ;  if  the  majority  chose  to  go,  the  pastor,  Rob- 
inson, was  to  go  with  them.  A  little  less  than  half 
of  the  whole  number  offered,  and  the  pastor  tarried 
behind.  The  hope,  however,  was  that  at  no  distant 
time  they  would  be  reunited.  Meantime  each  party 
was  to  exercise  all  the  functions  of  a  church. 

All  being  in  readiness,  they  spent  a  day  of  solemn 
fasting  and  prayer,  and  their  pastor  having  preached 
them  a  farewell  discourse,  they  poured  out  their  sup- 
plications before  the  Lord  with  abundance  of  tears, 
then  proceeded  together  to  the  port  of  Delft,  where  the 


284  WILLIAM  BREWSTER. 

last  good-bys  were  said,  and  the  Pilgrims  for  the  third 
time  went  out,  not  knowing  whither  they  went.  They 
find  the  Mayflower  at  Southampton,  according  to 
agreement,  and  after  a  few  days  occupied  in  necessary 
preparations  the  two  little  ships  spread  their  sails  for 
the  unknown  port.  Accidents  happen,  and  they  must 
put  back  once  and  again ;  finally  the  Speedwell  is  left 
behind  as  unfit  for  the  voyage,  and  the  Mayflower, 
with  one  hundred  and  one  passengers,  on  the  16th 
September,  1620,  proceeds  on  her  way  alone.  What 
a  harvest  was  in  that  handful  of  seed-corn !  What  a 
precious  freight  of  the  world's  best  hopes  to  be  in- 
trusted in  so  frail  a  bark  to  the  rough  waves  and 
the  rude  blasts  of  the  autumnal  equinox!  What  a 
venture  for  men  who  had  hardly  been  out  of  sight 
of  land,  for  timid  women  and  little  children !  What 
audacity  of  faith,  what  ineffable  courage  !  And  what 
royal  determination,  when,  in  mid-ocean,  their  little 
craft  weakened  by  the  September  gales,  strained  and 
yielding  in  her  frame,  they  refuse  to  put  back  at  the 
suggestion  of  the  captain  and  other  officers,  and  bring 
out  an  old  iron  screw,  whose  use  none  could  have  fore- 
told, and  press  the  bulging  timbers  back  into  their 
place!  They  were  born  to  found  empire  or  church, 
these  men  and  women. 

The  story  thenceforth  is  too  familiar  to  be  dwelt 
upon  save  in  the  most  cursory  manner.  I  will  not 
endeavor  even  to  freshen  its  outlines  in  your  recollec- 
tion. I  do  not  need  tell  you  of  the  immortal  compact, 
drawn  up,  no  doubt,  by  Elder  Brewster  himself,  which 
has  been  pronounced  the  germ  of  American  constitu- 
tions; nor  when,  and  where,  and  how,  the  Pilgrims 
landed.  Why  should  I  rehearse  their  debarkation 
amid  the  snows ;  their  resting  upon  the  Sabbath,  ac* 


THE  ROCK.  285 

cording  to  the  commandment,  for  six  Sabbaths ;  their 
long  explorations  and  weary  journeys  to  and  fro  about 
the  shores  of  Cape  Cod,  the  rain  often  hardening  to 
ice  upon  their  garments,  until  they  were  like  coats  of 
iron,  women  and  children  mewed  up  meanwhile  in  the 
little  ship,  their  monotonous  sea-life  prolonged  to  three 
weary  months  and  more,  until  at  last  they  found  the 
divinely  appointed  place,  and  set  their  feet  upon  the 
rock,  of  which  one  of  New  England's  scholars  has 
said,  "  Even  then,  without  its  fellow  upon  our  shores, 
it  was  destined  to  be  without  its  fellow  on  any  shore 
throughout  the  world.  Nature  had  laid  it,  the  Archi- 
tect of  the  universe  had  laid  it,  when  the  morning  stars 
sang  together,  and  all  the  sons  of  God  shouted  for 
joy.  There  it  had  reposed  unseen  by  human  eye,  the 
storms  and  floods  of  centuries  beating  and  breaking 
on  it.  There  it  had  reposed  awaiting  the  slow-coming 
feet,  which,  guided  and  guarded  by  no  mere  human 
power,  were  now  to  make  it  famous  forever.  The 
Pilgrims  trod  it,  it  would  seem,  unconsciously,  and  left 
nothing  but  authentic  tradition  to  identify  it.  Their 
thoughts,  at  that  hour,  were  upon  no  stone  of  earthly 
mould.  If  they  observed  at  all  what  was  beneath 
their  feet,  it  may  indeed  have  helped  them  still  more 
fervently  to  lift  their  eyes  to  Him  who  had  been  pre- 
dicted and  promised  '  as  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock 
in  a  weary  land,'  and  may  have  given  renewed  em- 
phasis to  the  psalm,  which,  perchance,  they  may  have 
recalled  :  '  From  the  end  of  the  earth  will  I  cry  unto 
Thee  when  my  heart  is  overwhelmed  :  lead  me  to  the 
rock  that  is  higher  than  I.'  Their  trust  was  only  in 
the  Rock  of  Ages."  l 

1  Hon.  Robert  C.  Winthrop,  Oration  at  the  Two  Hundred  and 
Fiftieth  Anniversary  of  the  Landing  of  the  Pilgrims,  1870. 


286  WILLIAM  BREWSTER. 

William  Brewster  was  now  getting  to  be  an  old 
man,  three-score  years  of  age ;  but  for  nearly  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century  longer  he  was  spared  to  be  known 
and  loved  by  the  little  church  of  the  Pilgrimage  as 
Elder  Brewster.  I  have  used  his  name  partly  be- 
cause of  the  greatness  and  nobleness  of  the  man  him- 
self ^  and  partly  because  of  the  official  relation  which 
he  sustained  to  the  transit  of  the  reformed  religion 
from  the  Old  World  to  the  New.  The  Pilgrims  first 
left  England  as  a  church ;  they  tarried  at  Amster- 
dam as  a  church ;  they  remained  eleven  years  at  Ley- 
den  as  a  church ;  they  embarked  upon  the  Mayflower, 
and  sailed  the  sea,  and  stepped  upon  the  shores  of 
Plymouth  as  a  church.  This,  therefore,  as  I  said  at 
the  outset,  was  the  true  culmination  of  the  Reforma- 
tion of  the  Church  of  England.  That  they  brought 
a  Christian  state  with  them  also  was  incidental,  not 
essential.  They  were  the  first  to  exhibit  to  the  world 
what  are  the  true  relations  that  should  exist  between 
the  two :  that  the  Church  shall  be  free,  absolutely  free, 
in  its  worship  and  ordinances  and  discipline ;  that  the 
State  shall  only  protect  it ;  that  neither  the  one  nor 
the  other  shall  interfere  in  the  peculiar  function  of  its 
fellow.  Calvin  had  not  made  the  discovery  at  Geneva, 
nor  Knox  in  Scotland.  The  Huguenots  were  dimly 
looking  towards  it,  and  hoping  for  it.  The  Church 
of  England  had  not  even  remotely  approached  it. 
The  Pilgrims  accomplished  it ;  but "  with  a  great  price 
obtained  they  this  freedom." 

The  foundations  that  were  laid  by  Brewster  and  his 
companions  have  been  loftily  built  upon  by  later  ages 
with  much  that  is  good,  with  much  also  that  is  evil; 
something  of  gold,  silver,  precious  stones,  doubtless, — 
something  doubtless  of  wood,  hay,  stubble,  which  time 


ABIDING  FOUNDATIONS.  287 

and  change,  and  the  judgments  of  God  which  time  and 
change  always  bring,  will  surely  burn  away. 

But  the  foundation  will  abide  of  belief  in  the  eter- 
nal verities  of  a  just  and  righteous  God,  who  is  the 
friend  of  all  who  obey  Him  ;  of  faith  in  his  Son,  who 
is  the  divine  Saviour,  and  must  be  the  supreme  Master 
of  human  life  ;  of  a  revelation  of  faith  and  a  law  of 
practice  that  are  sufficient  for  all  the  moral  needs  of 
men,  and  adequate  to  the  renovation  of  the  world. 


XII. 

JOHN  WESLEY. 
A.  D.  1703-1791. 

THE  power  of  the  Gospel  to  create  anew  has  been  its  standing  miracle  in 
all  the  Christian  ages.  It  is  its  highest  and  most  divine  authentication. 
Celsus  was  right,  looking  from  his  own  point  of  view.  No  mere  human 
culture  can  change  the  nature  of  man.  It  can  only  cover  over,  civilize, 
and  adorn.  But  those  in  whom  sin  has  become  a  second  nature  are  the 
very  persons  in  whom  the  Gospel  has  wrought  its  most  wondrous  trans- 
formations, from  Paul  and  Augustine  down  to  the  Wesleyan  revivals  of 
the  last  century  and  the  most  remarkable  conversions  of  to-day.  —  E.  H. 
SEARS,  Sermons  and  Songs. 


19 


XII. 

JOHN  WESLEY. 
A.  D.  1703-1791. 

THE  eighteenth  century  was  but  three  years  old 
when  John  Wesley  was  born,  and  his  life  extended 
into  its  last  decade.  The  eighty-eight  years  of  that 
life  embraced  eleven  of  the  twelve  that  Anne  was 
upon  the  throne,  the  thirteen  years  of  the  reign  of 
George  I.,  the  thirty-three  of  that  of  George  II.,  and 
something  more  than  thirty  of  that  of  George  III. 
The  latest  biographer  of  Wesley l  has  quoted  a  writer 
in  the  "North  British  Review,"  who  says,  "Never  has 
a  century  risen  in  Christian  England  so  void  of  soul 
and  faith.  It  rose  as  a  sunless  dawn  following  upon 
a  dewless  night.  There  was  no  freshness  in  the  past 
and  no  promise  in  the  future.  The  Puritans  were 
buried  and  the  Methodists  were  not  born.  The  phi- 
losopher of  the  age  was  Bolingbroke,  the  moralist  was 
Addison,  the  minstrel  was  Pope,  and  the  preacher  was 
Atterbury.  The  world  had  the  idle,  discontented  look 
of  the  morning  after  some  mad  holiday ;  and  like 
rocket-sticks,  and  the  singed  paper  from  last  night's 
squibs,  the  spent  jokes  of  Charles  and  Rochester  lay 
all  about,  and  people  yawned  to  look  at  them.  The 
reign  of  buffoonery  was  past,  but  the  reign  of  faith 
and  earnestness  had  not  commenced."  This  sharp  in- 
c  l  Tyennan,  Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley,  vol.  i.,  p.  61. 


292  JOHN   WESLEY. 

dictment  of  the  age  is  true,  but  it  does  not  go  far 
enough ;  it  does  not  express  the  full  enormity  of  the 
fact.  If  the  reign  of  buffoonery  was  past,  it  was  only 
because  all  that  was  worst  in  the  buffoonery  of  the 
Restoration  period  had  been  adopted  into  society  that 
claimed  for  itself  the  perfection  of  respectability  and 
propriety.  The  buffoon  was  still  there  ;  only  the  paint 
had  been  washed  from  his  face,  his  party-colored  garb 
exchanged  for  decent  clothes,  and  his  indecent  tum- 
blings laid  aside  for  a  gait  that  was  curbed  into  a 
stilted  and  uneasy  dignity.  The  reign  of  Queen  Anne 
still  claims  to  have  been  the  golden  age  of  English 
literature,  and  it  shows  a  polished  surface,  to  be  sure, 
to  the  eye  which  gives  but  a  cursory  glance  at  its  rec- 
ords. There  are  Steele,  and  Addison,  and  Pope,  and 
Bishop  Berkeley,  and  Samuel  Clarke,  walking  in  the 
garments  of  literary  and  social  chastity,  and  Young 
with  his  vast  religious  pretentiousness;  but  Swift, 
greater  intellectually  than  any  of  them,  and  a  high 
church  dignitary  to  boot,  would  have  disgraced  the 
license  of  the  Merry  Monarch's  court  and  outdone  it 
in  profanity.  Etherege,  and  Wycherley,  and  Buck- 
ingham, and  Aphra  Behn,  and  even  Dryden,  made  the 
literature  of  Charles  II. 's  age  infamous  for  all  time. 
Anne's  reign  produced  no  such  numerous  spawn  of 
indecency ;  but  neither  did  it  give  birth  to  any  such 
pure  lights  of  heavenly  radiance  as  Milton,  and  Izaak 
Walton,  and  Bishop  Burnett,  and  Isaac  Barrow,  and 
John  Bunyan.  It  was  as  cold  and  spiritually  lifeless 
as  it  was  elegant.  Licentiousness  was  the  open  and 
shameless  profession  of  the  higher  classes  in  the  days 
of  Charles ;  in  the  time  of  Anne  it  festered  under  the 
surface.  On  my  lady's  table  is  lying  a  volume  of 
Bishop  Jeremy  Taylor's  "  Sermons,"  or  his  "  Holy 


STATE   OF  MORALS   AND  RELIGION.       293 

Living  and  Dying."  But  lift  the  book,  and  under- 
neath you  will  be  likely  to  find  the  licentious  comedies 
of  Etherege  showing  evidences  of  more  frequent  peru- 
sal. It  was  an  age  of  unbounded  extravagance  and 
worldliness.  Material  splendor  was  a  grand  passion, 
and  next  to  that,  indulgence  in  gross  animal  pleasure. 
In  order  to  obtain  money  for  vain  display,  and  to  com- 
mand the  greatest  amount  of  vicious  pleasures,  all 
means  were  resorted  to,  and  the  discrimination  between 
honesty  and  dishonesty  was  well-nigh  obliterated. 
Gambling  was  an  almost  universal  practice,  among 
men  and  women  alike.  Lords  and  ladies  were  skilled 
in  knavery ;  disgrace  was  not  in  cheating,  but  in  being 
cheated.  Both  sexes  were  given  to  profanity  and  to 
drunkenness.  Sarah  Jennings,  Duchess  of  Marlbor- 
ough,  could  swear  more  bravely  than  her  husband 
could  fight.  Gin  had  been  introduced  just  at  the  close 
of  the  last  century ;  before  the  middle  of  this .  its  an- 
nual consumption  in  England  rose  to  seven  million 
gallons.  And  as  all  fashions,  good  and  bad,  work 
downwards,  hardly  ever  in  the  opposite  direction,  the 
middle  classes  ran  the  same  race  of  corruption,  and 
the  lowest  were  eager  to  follow.  Tradesmen  and  shop- 
keepers aped  the  follies  of  the  Court,  with  their  "  long 
wigs  and  swords,  velvet  breeches  and  hunting-caps." 
The  wages  of  the  poor  were  spent  in  guzzling  beer  at 
merry-makings;  in  wakes  and  fairs,  badger-baitings 
and  cock-fights.  Matters  were  running  in  very  much 
the  same  course  as  they  were  in  France  at  the  same 
time,  —  a  course  which  in  the  latter  country  had  its 
terrific  outcome  in  the  Revolution,  near  the  close  of  the 
century.  And  the  only  thing  which  in  all  probability 
saved  England  from  a  similar  social  earthquake  was 
the  sudden  rise  of  Methodism,  which  laid  hold  of  the 


294  JOHN   WESLEY. 

lower  classes  and  converted  them  before  they  were 
ripe  for  an  explosion.  That  such  an  explosion  did  not 
occur  in  England,  no  thanks  are  due  to  any  general 
religious  influence  that  was  exerted  by  the  Church,  or 
even  by  the  Dissenting  interest.  The  Dissenters  had 
become  cold  and  formal  and  the  Church  was  well-nigh 
moribund.  Parsons  celebrated  holy  communion  and 
preached  to  a  score  of  hearers  in  the  morning,  devoted 
the  afternoon  of  Sunday  to  cards,  and  hunted  foxes 
the  rest  of  the  week  with  the  neighboring  squires.  In 
very  many  cases  the  sole  religious  requisition  made 
upon  the  clergyman  was  of  a  negative  sort ;  he  need 
not  even  write  his  sermons,  there  were  sermons  enough 
in  the  world  ready  made  ;  he  must  only  take  care  not 
to  scandalize  the  Church  by  too  gross  indulgence  in 
liquor  or  politics.  Probably  at  no  period  in  its  his- 
tory was  the  outlook  so  dark  upon  the  moral,  relig- 
ious, and  social  life  of  England.  The  fullness  of  time 
had  certainly  come.  We  can  see  it  now  as  probably 
it  could  not  then  have  been  discerned.  Unless  some 
superhuman  force  had  seized  upon  society  for  its  im- 
mediate transformation  and  purification,  it  must  have 
sunk  into  a  perdition  like  that  of  the  Cities  of  the 
Plain,  or  have  been  rent  into  fragments  by  some  rev- 
olutionary explosion  from  beneath. 

The  transforming  and  renovating  energy  was  gath- 
ering in  a  very  inconspicuous  and  entirely  unconscious 
way.  "  In  November,  1729,  four  young  gentlemen  of 
the  University  of  Oxford  —  Mr.  John  Wesley,  Fellow 
of  Lincoln  College ;  Mr.  Charles  Wesley,  student  of 
Christ  Church;  Mr.  Morgan,  Commoner  of  Christ 
Church ;  and  Mr.  Kirkham,  of  Merton  College  —  be- 
gan to  spend  some  evenings  in  a  week  together  in 
reading,  chiefly  the  Greek  Testament."  These  four 


GROWTH  OF  METHODISM.  295 

young  men  were  the  first  Methodists,  a  "handful  of 
corn,"  whose  fruit  now,  after  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years,  shakes  like  Lebanon  and  flourishes  like  the 
grass  of  the  earth.  The  Methodists  to-day  number 
five  millions ;  and  if  we  calculate  the  hearers  at  tho 
rate  of  thrice  the  number  of  church-members  there  is 
a  total  of  15,000,000  of  persons  coming  continually 
under  Methodist  instruction  and  influence,  and  meet- 
ing week  after  week  for  the  worship  of  God.  In  the 
light  of  these  figures  alone,  it  is  not  an  immodest  or 
immoderate  assertion  which  one  of  the  historians  of 
Methodism  makes  when  he  declares  it  to  be  the 
greatest  fact  in  the  history  of  the  Church  of  Christ ; 
greater  than  the  spread  of  primitive  Christianity  in 
the  first  two  centuries,  greater  than  the  Reformation 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  —  this  reformation,  which  be- 
gan in  the  days  of  our  grandfathers,  and  part  of  which 
we  have  witnessed  ourselves ;  which  has  given  to 
America  its  dominant  popular  faith,  with  a  standard 
planted  in  almost  every  village  of  the  land  ;  and  which 
is  building  churches  and  chapels,  year  in  and  year 
out,  at  the  rate  of  nearly  two  every  day.1 

For  more  than  fifty  years  one  man  was  the  control- 
ling spirit  of  this  great  movement ;  one  man  gave  it 
form  and  consistency;  the  leader  of  the  four  young 
men  who  met  to  spend  some  evenings  in  the  week  in 
reading,  chiefly  the  Greek  Testament,  —  John  Wesley. 

Let  us  turn  back  for  a  few  moments  to  glance  at 
the  facts  of  his  childhood  and  youth. 

About  fifteen  miles  to  northeast  of  Scrooby,  where 

1  I  have  found  it  somewhat  difficult  to  get  at  the  exact  statis- 
tics of  Methodism  ;  in  fact,  it  grows  so  rapidly  that  the  statisti- 
cian and  census-taker  can  hardly  keep  their  figures  up  with  its 
progress. 


296  JOHN    WESLEY. 

the  Pilgrim  Church  was  first  gathered,  lies  the  parish 
of  Epworth,  of  which  for  forty  years  the  Reverend 
Samuel  Wesley  was  the  learned  and  godly  rector.  To 
him  and  his  wife  Susannah  were  born  nineteen  chil- 
dren, one  of  whom,  John,  came  just  about  one  hun- 
dred years  after  the  Pilgrim  Congregation  was  first 
assembled  in  Scrooby  manor-house.  His  brother 
Charles,  destined  to  be  the  poet  of  Methodism,  as 
John  was  to  be  its  prophet,  was  five  years  younger. 
The  material  advantages  surrounding  Wesley's  child- 
hood, one  would  naturally  think,  must  have  been  slen- 
der ;  the  parental  care  must  have  been  rather  minutely 
subdivided,  the  parental  income  also.  Indeed,  before 
John  was  three  years  old  his  father  was  imprisoned 
for  debt,  and  before  he  was  six  the  parsonage  was  de- 
stroyed by  fire,  and  he  had  a  narrow  escape  with  his 
life,  being  drawn  through  an  upper  window  but  a 
moment  before  the  roof  fell  in.  His  mother  must 
have  been  a  veritable  well-spring  of  wholesome  and 
gracious  influences  to  her  children,  commanding,  as 
she  did,  after  they  had  come  into  ripe  and  influential 
manhood,  not  only  their  loving  reverence  for  her  per- 
son but  their  respect  for  her  judgment  and  practical 
counsel.  She  was  large-minded  and  liberal  and  far- 
seeing  ;  loved  God  with  all  her  heart,  and  her  neigh- 
bor as  herself.  The  piety  of  the  household  was  of  a 
wholesome  type,  free  from  hypocrisy  and  pretense  of 
every  sort ;  the  children  being  trained  and  treated  as 
Christians  from  their  infancy,  and  not  as  pagans  who 
might  possibly  become  Christians  at  some  future  time. 
Jack,  as  they  called  him,  came  to  the  communion  and 
received  the  sacrament  at  his  father's  hand  when  he 
was  eight  years  of  age.  He  thought  in  after  years  that 
he  sinned  away  that  "washing  of  the  Holy  Ghost" 


FALLING  FROM  GRACE.  297 

which  he  received  iD  baptism ;  but  the  reader  of  his 
life  looks  in  vain  for  the  evidence  of  any  such  "  fall 
from  grace."  Shortly  after  his  first  communion  he 
was  attacked  by  the  small-pox,  but  bore  the  terrible 
scourge  with  such  heroic  patience  that  his  mother 
wrote,  "Jack  has  borne  his  disease  bravely,  like  a 
man,  and  indeed  like  a  Christian,  without  complaint." 

His  "  fall  from  grace  "  occurred,  as  he  thought,  when 
he  was  at  the  Charterhouse  School  in  London,  where  he 
was  sent  at  ten  years  of  age.  We  love  Wesley  for  the 
beautiful  tenderness  and  delicacy  of  his  conscience, 
and  the  ingenuousness  and  frankness  of  his  confes- 
sions, and  for  his  fidelity  in  dealing  with  himself, 
never  adopting  any  lower  or  easier  standard  than  he 
applies  to  others ;  but  when  we  think  of  the  little  fel- 
low taken  up  to  London  from  the  warm  atmosphere 
of  a  Christian  home,  and  immersed  in  the  unfriendly 
influences  of  a  great  public  school,  as  public  schools 
were  then  and  are  in  England  to  this  day,  subjected 
to  the  tyrannies  and  ferocities  of  scores  of  elder  boys, 
to  their  ridicule  and  browbeating,  made  all  the  more 
severe  because  of  his  poverty,  and  discover  that  he 
bore  it  all  with  the  same  patience  that  he  did  the 
small-pox,  suffering  wrongfully  with  cheerful  fortitude, 
and  that  at  the  same  time  he  was  faithful  in  his  stud- 
ies, acquiring  all  approbation  for  diligence  and  assidu- 
ity, we  may  be  more  charitable  to  him  than  he  was  to 
himself,  or  than  his  latest  biographer  has  been,  who 
says  that  "  John  Wesley  entered  the  Charterhouse  a 
saint,  and  left  it  a  sinner."  We  will  agree  that  he  was 
a  saint  when  he  entered  ;  we  do  not  believe  that  he  had 
forfeited  his  right  to  the  name  when  he  departed. 

He  proceeded  in  due  time  to  Oxford,  being  elected 
to  Christ  Church  on  a  Charterhouse  foundation.  He 


298  JOHN   WESLEY. 

seems  to  have  had  no  purpose  to  enter  the  Church, 
though  it  was  the  earnest  desire  of  his  parents  that 
he  should  succeed  to  the  incumbency  of  his  father. 
Indeed,  he  afterwards  supposed  that  at  this  time  he 
was  not  even  a  Christian.  But  of  one  thing  he  seems 
to  have  possessed  throughout  a  profound  conviction; 
carrying  his  beliefs  in  the  reality  and  nearness  of 
the  spiritual  world  even  to  superstition.  He  hears 
ghost  stories  and  tells  them,  believes  them  and  writes 
about  them  in  all  seriousness.  They  do  not  inspire 
him  indeed  with  any  vulgar  terrors,  but  they  intensify 
his  convictions  of  the  existence  of  the  supernatural 
realm,  and  undoubtedly  exercise  an  important  influ- 
ence upon  his  future  life.  In  this,  however,  he  is  no 
exception.  Ghosts  and  witches  at  that  time,  and  for 
a  hundred  years  after,  were  realities  to  the  learned  and 
ignorant  alike.  Wesley  was  born  only  eleven  years 
after  the  Salem  Delusion,  and  the  very  next  year  after 
Cotton  Mather  published  his  "Magnalia."  Strange 
things  were  very  soon  to  happen  in  his  own  experience. 
Whether  he  became  a  Christian  in  early  childhood 
or  not,  there  certainly  came  a  turning-point  in  his  spir- 
itual history  when  he  was  twenty-three  years  of  age, 
upon  his  perusal  of  two  famous  books,  Thomas  a  Kem- 
pis's  "  Imitation  of  Christ "  and  Jeremy  Taylor's 
"  Holy  Living  and  Dying."  "  When  I  met  with  the 
first,"  he  says,  "  the  nature  and  extent  of  inward  re- 
ligion, the  religion  of  the  heart,  appeared  to  me  in  a 
stronger  light  than  ever  it  had  done  before.  I  saw 
that  giving  even  all  my  life  to  God  (supposing  it  pos- 
sible to  do  this,  and  go  no  further)  would  profit  me 
nothing,  unless  I  gave  my  heart,  yea  all  my  heart,  to 
Him.  I  saw  that  simplicity  of  intention  and  purity  of 
affection,  one  design  in  all  we  speak  and  do,  and  one 


SUSANNAH   WESLEY.  299 

desire  ruling  all  our  tempers,  are  indeed  the  wings  of 
the  soul,  without  which  she  can  never  ascend  to  God. 
I  sought  after  this  from  that  hour."  And  if  ever  mor- 
tal man  attained  to  that  simplicity  of  intention  and 
purity  of  affection,  that  singleness  of  design  and  desire, 
it  was  John  Wesley.  At  this  stage  of  his  history  his 
mother  seems  to  have  been  his  guide  and  helper,  not 
only  in  his  religious  experience,  but  in  the  formation 
of  his  religious  opinions.  There  is  something  wonder- 
ful in  this  Oxford  scholar,  of  four  years'  standing,  and 
of  first-rate  attainments,  sending  his  heart-doubts  and 
theological  difficulties  away  down  to  the  country  par- 
sonage in  Lincolnshire,  to  have  them  solved  by  his 
care-worn,  "  many-childed  mother."  There  is  some- 
thing more  wonderful  in  the  clean  way  in  which  she 
unties  the  knots  or  —  cuts  them.  The  Methodist 
Church  owes  its  system  of  doctrine  quite  as  much, 
I  think,  to  Susannah  Wesley  as  to  her  illustrious  son. 
To  the  intuitions  of  a  woman  she  added  the  logic  of 
a  gownsman  and  the  love  of  a  saint.  Finer  letters 
were  never  written.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that 
Methodists  have  been  pioneers  in  the  enfranchisement 
of  feminine  speech,  that  they  have  believed  in  it,  and 
practiced  it  from  the  first.  They  would  have  dis- 
graced their  origin  otherwise. 

At  length,  in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  his 
parents,  Wesley  was  ordained  a  deacon  in  1725,  but 
with  little  thought  of  pursuing  any  other  than  a  col- 
legiate life.  In  the  popular  mind,  Wesley  has  been 
so  completely  identified  with  the  ignorant  and  humble 
multitudes  to  whose  spiritual  elevation  he  gave  all  the 
best  endeavors  of  his  life,  and  his  ministers  were  so 
often  men  of  very  meagre  intellectual  gifts,  and  the 
great  Church  which  he  founded,  in  its  early  days,  set 


300  JOHN   WESLEY. 

such  slight  estimate  upon  any  other  human  attain- 
ments than  those  of  a  purely  spiritual  kind,  that 
Wesley  himself  has  been  underrated  on  the  intel- 
lectual side.  But  his  scholarship  was  of  fine  quality. 
Wesley  was  Greek  lecturer  in  the  University,  and 
fellow  of  Lincoln  College,  at  twenty -four  years  of 
age.  He  was  the  peer,  in  his  intellectual  endow- 
ments, of  any  literary  character  of  that  most  literary 
period.  No  gownsman  of  the  University,  no  lawned 
and  mitred  prelate  of  his  time,  was  intellectually  the 
superior  of  this  itinerating  Methodist,  —  a  bishop  more 
truly  than  the  Archprelate  of  Canterbury  himself  in 
everything  but  the  empty  name.  The  hosts  of  literary 
pamphleteers  and  controversialists  that  rained  their 
attacks  upon  his  system,  in  showers,  were  made  to  feel 
the  keenness  of  his  logic  and  the  staggering  weight  of 
his  responsive  blows.  It  is  a  fine  sight  to  look  upon 
from  this  distance,  that  of  this  single,  modest  man, 
an  unpretentious  knight  of  true  religion  and  conse- 
crated learning,  beset  for  forty  years  by  scores,  yes 
hundreds,  of  assailants,  armed  in  all  the  ostentation  of 
churchly  dignity,  shooting  at  him  with  their  arrows  of 
tracts  and  sermons  ;  newspaper  writers  pouring  upon 
him  their  ceaseless  squibs ;  malicious  critics  assailing 
his  motives  and  his  methods  with  innuendoes  and  false 
suggestions  ;  ponderous  professors  tilting  at  him  with 
their  heavier  lances  of  book  and  stately  treatise  ;  and 
he,  alone,  giving  more  than  thrust  for  thrust,  and  his 
brother  Charles  furnishing  the  inspiriting  accompani- 
ment of  martial  music  until  the  one  man  has  chased  a 
thousand,  and  the  two  have  put  ten  thousand  to  flight. 
It  was  at  this  time,  while  attending  to  his  college 
duties,  that  Wesley  settled  upon  those  convictions,  — 
which  during  his  life-time  were  peculiar  to  the  Meth- 


EARLY  DOCTRINES.  301 

odists,  but  which  at  this  day  are  so  generally  accepted 
by  believers  in  spiritual  religion  everywhere,  —  which 
are  practically  adopted  and  acted  upon  even  by  many 
whose  denominational  pride  and  traditional  proclivi- 
ties cause  them  to  reject  the  doctrines  formally  and 
theoretically.  Let  me  briefly  state  them  in  his  own 
language :  — 

"  Justification  means  present  forgiveness,  pardon  of 
sins,  and  acceptance  with  God.  The  condition  of  this 
is  faith.  I  mean  not  only  that  without  faith  we  can- 
not be  justified,  but  also  that  as  soon  as  any  one  has 
true  faith,  in  that  moment  he  is  justified.  Good  works 
follow  this  faith,  but  cannot  go  before  it,  much  less 
can  sanctification,  which  implies  a  continued  course 
of  good  works  springing  from  holiness  of  heart. 

"  Repentance  must  go  before  faith,  and  fruits  meet 
for  it  if  there  be  opportunity.  By  repentance  I  mean 
conviction  of  sin,  producing  real  desires  and  sincere 
resolutions  of  amendment;  and  by  fruits  meet  for 
repentance,  I  mean  forgiving  our  brother,  ceasing 
from  evil,  and  doing  good,  using  the  ordinances  of 
God,  and  in  general  obeying  Him  according  to  the 
measure  of  grace  which  we  have  received.  But  these 
I  cannot  as  yet  term  good  works,  because  they  do  not 
spring  from  faith  and  the  love  of  God. 

"  By  salvation  I  mean,  not  barely  deliverance  from 
hell  or  going  to  heaven,  but  a  present  deliverance 
from  sin,  a  restoration  of  the  soul  to  its  primitive 
health,  its  original  purity,  a  recovery  of  the  divine 
nature,  the  renewal  of  our  souls  after  the  image  of 
God  in  righteousness  and  true  holiness,  in  justice,  and 
mercy,  and  truth.  This  implies  all  holy  and  heavenly 
tempers,  and,  by  consequence,  all  holiness  of  conver- 
sation. 


302  JOHN    WESLEY. 

"  Faith  is  the  sole  condition  of  this  salvation. 
Without  faith  we  cannot  thus  be  saved,  for  we  can- 
not rightly  serve  God  unless  we  love  Him.  And  we 
cannot  love  Him  unless  we  know  Him,  and  we  cannot 
know  Him  unless  by  faith. 

"  Faith  in  general  is  a  divine,  supernatural  convic- 
tion of  things  not  seen,  i.  e.,  of  things  past,  future,  or 
spiritual.  Justifying  faith  implies  not  only  a  divine 
conviction  that  God  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the 
world  to  himself  ;  but  a  sure  trust  and  confidence 
that  Christ  died  for  my  sins ;  that  He  loved  me,  and 
gave  himself  for  me.  And  the  moment  a  penitent 
sinner  believes  that,  God  pardons  and  absolves  him. 

"  And  as  soon  as  his  pardon  or  justification  is  wit- 
nessed to  him  by  the  Holy  Ghost  he  is  saved.  He 
loves  God  and  all  mankind.  He  has  the  mind  that 
was  in  Christ,  and  power  to  walk  as  He  walked. 
From  that  time,  unless  he  makes  shipwreck  of  his 
faith,  salvation  gradually  increases  in  his  soul." 

To  these  doctrines  Wesley  added  others,  as  his  re- 
ligious experience  grew  in  later  years.  But  this  is  a 
fair  summary  of  what  was  held  by  the  first  Methodists. 
And  there  was  nothing  here  to  furnish  sufficient 
grounds  for  a  new  sect.  Indeed,  Wesley  intended  no 
such  thing.  These  things  were  legitimately  held  as 
actually  embraced  in,  or  deducible  from,  the  Articles 
of  the  Church  of  England,  from  which  Wesley  con- 
templated no  withdrawal.  Methodism  was  not  a  dis- 
senting from,  but  a  supplementing  of,  the  doctrines 
and  life  of  the  Church.  It  was  a  return  to  realism. 
It  was  an  honest,  earnest  endeavor  not  to  bring  in  a 
new  theology,  but  to  put  some  life  under  the  ribs  of 
the  old.  It  closely  resembled  the  movement  which, 
in  these  days  of  ours,  has  been  termed  the  Theological 


THEOLOGICAL  RENAISSANCE.  303 

Kenaissance  of  the  nineteenth  century.  These  state- 
ments of  Wesley,  trite,  and  even  formal,  as  they  seem 
to  us,  were  the  New  Theology  of  his  day.  They  were 
deemed  heretical  and  mischievous.  All  the  artillery 
of  wit,  of  scorn,  of  ridicule,  of  hatred,  were  trained 
upon  them.  But  it  was  a  movement  within  the 
Church,  and  not  from  the  Church.  Wesley  refused 
through  life  to  be  called  anything  but  a  presbyter  of 
the  Church  of  England  ;  even  when  he  was  excluded 
from  the  majority  of  her  pulpits,  he  still  worshiped  at 
her  altars,  communed  within  her  walls,  and  constrained 
all  his  followers  to  do  likewise.  Indeed,  Methodism, 
during  the  first  third  of  its  history,  was  little  more 
than  a  society  of  English  churchmen  banded  together 
for  mutual  edification,  for  social  prayer,  and  confer- 
ence, and  singing,  and  the  study  of  the  Scriptures. 
Wesley  would  hold  no  service,  nor  would  he  suffer 
any  of  his  preachers  to  do  so,  in  any  place  at  the 
same  hour  of  the  church  service,  if  that  church 
itself  would  hold  all  who  wanted  to  worship.  Ac- 
cordingly, the  first  Methodists  held  their  services  at 
an  early  hour  in  the  morning,  or  late  at  night,  and 
during  the  canonical  hours  would  be  found  in  the 
parish  churches.  They  had  no  separate  communion 
season,  save  when  the  rector  was  of  scandalous  life, 
or  when  the  communicants  could  not  be  accommodated 
within  consecrated  walls.1 

1  In  1786,  when  Wesley  was  eighty-three  years  old,  the  Meth- 
odists at  Beptford  requested  to  be  allowed  to  have  service  in  the 
Methodist  chapel  at  the  same  time  that  there  was  service  in  the 
church.  "  It  is  easy  to  see,"  he  tells  them,  "  that  this  would  be 
a  formal  separation  from  the  Church.  We  fixed  both  our  morn- 
ing and  evening  service,  all  over  England,  with  this  very  design, 
—  that  those  of  the  Church,  if  they  chose  it,  might  attend  both 
the  one  and  the  other.  But  to  fix  it  at  the  same  hour  is  obliging 


304  JOHN   WESLEY. 

But  we  must  return  to  Oxford,  where  Methodism  is 
now  being  born.  These  four  young  men,  to  whom 
others  were  gradually  drawn,  —  George  Whitefield 
among  them,  —  had  for  their  ideal,  simple  fidelity. 
They  were  orthodox,  at  least  in  the  depths  of  their 
own  consciousness.  All  that  they  purposed  was  hon- 
estly to  put  their  orthodoxy  in  practice,  to  be  conscien- 
tious in  life,  in  thought,  speech,  behavior,  in  study,  in 
conversation,  in  society,  and  in  solitude.  There  should 
not  be  a  rubric  of  the  Church,  nor  a  demand  of  the 
moral  law,  which  they  would  not  help  each  other  to 
obey,  and  diligently  endeavor  to  obey  themselves  in  the 
spirit  and  mind  of  Christ.  And  the  effect  of  all  this 
upon  Oxford  was  much  like  that  which  was  produced 
by  Christ  and  his  disciples  at  Jerusalem  ;  their  hours 
of  devotion  and  of  study  were  faithfully  kept,  and 
men  around  called  them  Methodists,  because  they 
lived  methodically.  They  had  their  plans  of  study 
for  every  day  in  the  week.  They  rose  early  to  get 
additional  time  for  charitable  work.  They  visited 
the  workhouse  and  the  jail  to  instruct  the  prisoners. 
They  established  schools  for  poor  children,  and  taught 
them.  They  refused  to  spend  money  in  selfish  indul- 
gence, that  they  might  help  the  needy.  They  sought 
out  those  treatises  for  leisure  reading  which  would  aid 
them  to  live  in  the  Spirit.  They  exercised  a  brotherly 
and  affectionate  care  for  each  other's  highest  welfare. 
They  sought  to  win  young  students  around  them  from 
vicious  courses.  They  were  simply  what  in  these  days 
would  be  called  a  Young  Men's  Christian  Association. 
In  all  this  Wesley  was  the  leader  and  exemplar  to 

them  to  separate  either  from  the  Church  or  us,  and  this  I  judge 
to  be  not  only  inexpedient  but  totally  unlawful  for  me  to  do."  — 
Tyerman,  vol.  iii.,  p.  488. 


VOLUNTARY  POVERTY.  305 

whom  they  all  looked.  He  was  a  pattern  of  diligence, 
of  self-denial,  of  generosity.  One  year  his  income  was 
thirty  pounds  ;  he  lived  on  twenty-eight  pounds,  and 
gave  away  forty  shillings.  The  next  year  he  received 
sixty  pounds;  he  still  lived  on  twenty-eight  pounds, 
and  gave  away  thirty-two  pounds.  The  third  year  he 
received  ninety  pounds,  still  lived  on  twenty -eight 
pounds,  and  gave  away  sixty-two  pounds.  The  fourth 
year  he  received  one  hundred  and  twenty  pounds,  lived 
as  before  on  twenty-eight  pounds,  and  gave  away  all 
the  rest.  One  cold  winter's  day  he  met  a  poor  girl 
who  was  a  pupil  in  one  of  their  schools.  She  seemed 
nearly  frozen.  He  said  to  her,  "  You  seem  half  frozen  ; 
have  you  nothing  to  wear  but  that  linen  gown?'* 
"  Sir,  this  is  all  I  have."  He  puts  his  hand  to  his 
pocket,  but  there  is  no  money  there.  He  goes  sadly 
to  his  room,  and  his  walls  that  are  hung  with  pictures 
seem  to  upbraid  him.  He  strips  them  down,  saying 
to  himself,  "  How  can  thy  Master  say  to  thee,  Well 
done,  good  and  faithful  servant !  Thou  hast  adorned 
thy  walls  with  the  money  which  might  have  screened 
this  poor  creature  from  the  cold !  O  Justice !  O 
Mercy !  Are  not  these  pictures  the  blood  of  this  poor 
maid  ?  "  And  this  was  no  spurt  of  generosity.  When 
he  was  an  old  man  past  his  three-score  years  and  ten, 
and  his  Methodism  had  become  triumphant  through 
the  kingdom,  an  order  passed  the  House  of  Lords  that 
the  commissioners  of  excise  send  out  circular  letters 

1  We  are  reminded  of  the  tender-heartedness  of  a  like-minded 
man,  Charles  Kingsley,  who,  when  the  famine  was  raging  in 
India,  pushed  his  plate  aside  as  the  head-lines  of  the  morning 
paper  fell  under  his  eye,  exclaiming,  "  Take  it  away  !  Take  it 
away  !  I  cannot  eat  while  my  brothers  are  dying  by  thousands 
of  hunger ! " 

20 


306  JOHN  WESLEY. 

to  all  persons  suspected  of  possessing  plate,  and  to 
those  who  have  not  regularly  paid  duty  on  the  same. 
John  Wesley  received  a  circular.  This  was  his  re- 

p!y:  — 

"  SIR,  —  I  have  two  silver  tea-spoons  in  London, 
and  two  in  Bristol.  This  is  all  the  plate  I  have  at 
present :  and  I  shall  not  buy  any  more  while  so  many 
around  me  want  bread. 

"  I  am,  sir,  your  most  humble  servant, 

"  JOHN  WESLEY." 

Such,  in  a  very  meagre  outline,  was  Methodism  in 
its  earliest  aspects  at  Oxford,  when  various  circum- 
stances began  to  arise,  in  the  providence  of  God,  for 
transplanting  it  to  a  wider  sphere.  It  looked  at  first 
more  like  destruction  than  transplantation.  Wesley's 
father  was  an  old  man,  and  wanted  his  son  to  succeed 
him  as  rector  of  Epworth.  Wesley  himself  preferred 
to  stay  and  continue  his  work  in  Oxford.  But  neither 
purpose  was  in  the  divine  plan.  Another  applicant 
secured  the  rectory,  for  which  Wesley  was  not  sorry. 
About  this  time  General  Oglethorpe  was  engaged  in 
his  benevolent  designs  for  the  colonization  of  Georgia. 
Oglethorpe,  being  a  man  of  generous  means  and  large 
influence,  had  been  endeavoring  to  mitigate  the  harsh- 
ness of  those  laws  which  imposed  imprisonment  for 
what  were  only  technical  crimes.  Every  year  thou- 
sands of  men  were  imprisoned  for  the  simple  crime  of 
being  poor.  A  small  debt  was  sufficient  to  keep  a  man 
in  jail  for  life.  Oglethorpe  at  length  secured  legisla- 
tion which  liberated  a  multitude  of  these  unfortunates, 
and  took  still  further  steps  to  procure  a  settlement  for 
them  on  the  Savannah  River.  At  this  time,  also,  there 
had  been  going  on  in  Germany  a  religious  revival  in 


OGLETHORPE'S   COLONY.  307 

which  thousands  of  persons  had  been  converted,  who 
were  forthwith  subjected  to  the  most  terrible  persecu- 
tion by  the  Catholic  authorities.  To  these  victims  of 
almost  unheard  of  cruelties  Oglethorpe  also  offered  an 
asylum  in  his  new  colony,  which  was  gratefully  ac- 
cepted. A  company  of  Scottish  Highlanders,  and  still 
further  a  band  of  Moravians,  speedily  followed.  So 
Georgia  was  settled,  taking  its  name  from  George  II. , 
who  gave  it  its  charter  in  1732. 

Wesley's  intense  earnestness  and  spirit  of  self-sac- 
rifice had  come  to  Oglethorpe's  ears,  and  the  General 
persuaded  him  to  go  to  his  new  colony,  holding  forth 
as  the  grand  inducement  the  opportunity,  which  now 
presented,  of  Christianizing  the  native  races  of  the 
American  Continent.  And  for  two  years  Wesley  tar- 
ried here  in  America,  without  at  all  being  able  to  ac- 
complish the  purpose  which  had  brought  him.  He 
Christianized  few  or  no  Indians,  and  the  strange  mix- 
ture of  social  and  religious  elements  which  made  up 
the  colony  did  not  receive  his  labor  kindly,  and  he  re- 
turned to  England.  He  was  to  do  a  greater  work  for 
America  than  he  had  ever  dreamed  of,  but  in  no  way 
that  man  could  then  have  anticipated:  by  indirect 
influence,  and  largety  after  he  himself  should  have 
passed  away  from  earth.  He  was  brought  here,  in 
this  strange  episode  of  his  experience,  to  gain  what  he 
afterwards  called  his  conversion.  It  threw  him  into 
contact  with  some  pious  Moravians,  from  whose  con- 
versation he  was  led  to  question  the  depth  and  value 
of  his  own  religious  experience.  There  was  a  fearful 
storm  at  sea  on  the  passage  out ;  and  while  all  were 
expecting  to  go  to  the  bottom,  and  the  English  were 
trembling  and  terrified,  the  Germans  were  singing 
their  hymns  to  God  with  uplifted  faces  and  calm 


308  JOHN   WESLEY. 

hearts,  and  Wesley  discovered  that  his  own  trust  was 
exceedingly  defective.  He  longed  for  this  open  secret 
of  the  Moravians.  When  he  returned  to  London  he 
sought  the  Moravian  society  there,  and  they  instructed 
him  in  the  way  of  God  more  perfectly.  He  learned 
the  lesson,  and  to  his  former  unreserved  consecration 
of  himself  to  God  he  now  added  that  constant  and 
unbroken  peace  which  passeth  understanding.  It  was 
a  long  and  roundabout  journey  for  such  an  issue,  when 
the  Word  was  so  nigh  him.  He  found  not  what  he 
sought,  but  what  he  found  was  worth  the  cost.  This 
was  no  doubt  the  completion  of  his  equipment  for  his 
grand,  lifelong,  apostolic  work.  Out  of  this  new  ex- 
perience there  was  to  come  a  new  plank  for  the  great 
Methodist  platform,  a  plank  which  Wesley  magnified, 
perhaps  unduly,  because  of  the  vast  change  which  it 
effected  in  his  own  feelings  rather  than  in  his  princi- 
ples ;  which  in  later  times  he  and  some  of  his  followers 
insisted  upon  under  the  erroneous  name  of  perfection  ; 
which  has  subjected  them  to  unmerited  ridicule,  but 
which  is  no  empty  tenet  of  enthusiasm,  but  a  veritable 
experience ;  which  Christians  of  every  name  believe 
in,  and  which  it  is  every  Christian's  privilege  to  attain 
and  duty  to  seek  —  the  repose  and  the  energy  of  faith. 
And  now,  at  thirty-five  years  of  age  (1738),  he  is 
in  England  again  absolutely  without  any  plan  of  life, 
save  that  he  believes  all  the  world  to  be  his  parish, 
and  that  he  must  preach  the  gospel  wherever  he  can 
get  a  chance.  He  has  not  the  remotest  idea  of  build- 
ing up  a  system,  but  simply  to  do  the  work  of  the 
present  hour  as  God  leads  the  way.  He  is  a  priest 
of  the  Church  of  England,  and  the  highest  of  high 
churchmen,  our  ritualistic  brothers  of  to-day  not  more 
so.  Wherever  there  is  a  pulpit  of  the  Church  of  Eng. 


OUT-DOOR  PREACHING.  309 

land  open  to  him  ho  fills  it.  But  his  heart  is  ablaze 
with  the  love  of  Christ  and  the  love  of  men,  and  he 
is  possessed  of  a  passionate  desire  to  proclaim  in  all 
places  his  new-found  doctrine  of  present  salvation  by 
faith  alone,  and  the  holiness  of  life  consequent  there- 
upon. Further  than  this  he  does  not  plan  or  look.  In 
less  than  one  year  from  this  time  he  will  be  launched 
upon  his  career  as  the  Apostle  of  Methodism. 

The  man's  intense  eagerness,  his  theory  of  instanta- 
neous conversion  to  God,  and  the  remarkable  spiritual 
results  which  seem  to  be  immediately  consequent  upon 
his  preaching,  do  not  particularly  commend  him  to  the 
high  and  dry  ministers  of  the  Established  Church ;  and 
gradually  the  pulpits  of  the  establishment  close  to  him, 
as  certain  flowers  are  said  to  shut  up  their  petals  at 
sunrise.  But  George  Whitefield,  one  of  the  old  Ox- 
ford club,  has  been  preaching  at  Bristol,  and  sends  to 
Wesley  to  come  and  help  him.  He  goes,  not  doubting 
the  will  of  God ;  but  what  a  shock  to  this  persist- 
ent high  churchman.  Whitefield  is  preaching  in  no 
church,  in  no  conventicle  even,  but,  in  what  seems  to 
Wesley  a  most  disorderly  and  unauthorized  way,  in 
the  open  fields,  to  thousands  of  people  at  a  time. 
"  I  could  scarce  reconcile  myself,"  he  says,  "  at  first, 
to  this  strange  way  of  preaching  in  the  fields  ;  having 
been  all  my  life,  till  very  lately,  so  tenacious  of  every 
point  relating  to  decency  and  order,  that  I  should 
have  thought  the  saving  of  souls  almost  a  sin  if  it  had 
not  been  done  in  a  church."  Strange  that  the  good 
man  had  never  thought  what  ecclesiastical  walls  shel- 
tered Him  who  spake  as  never  man  spake,  and  the 
band  of  fishermen  and  tent-makers,  who  after  Him, 
published  his  gospel  from  Britain  to  India.  But  what 
scruples  can  stand  against  the  emergency?  Whitefield 


310  JOHN   WESLEY. 

must  leave ;  here  are  thousands  that  no  edifice  could 
hold,  even  if  the  churches  were  not,  by  a  kind  of  tacit 
consent,  closed  to  them.  He  had  to  preach  in  Georgia 
in  the  open  air.  Why  not  here?  He  does  preach. 
The  Rubicon  is  crossed.  The  flaming  torch  is  lighted 
to  burn  through  England  henceforth  for  more  than 
forty  years ;  to  be  taken  from  Wesley's  dying  hand 
to  flame  through  all  the  world  till  there  shall  be  no 
more  night  and  the  nations  shall  need  no  candle,  nei- 
ther light  of  the  sun.  He  is  here  in  Bristol  for  nine 
months,  —  such  a  nine  months  as  Bristol  never  saw 
before ;  no !  nor  England,  nor  the  world  since  the  day 
of  Pentecost. 

Wesley's  notions  of  propriety  were  destined  to  be 
still  further  shocked.  Among  the  multitudes  that 
thronged  around  him,  strange  physical  demonstrations 
began  to  appear.  They  shocked  even  Whitefield  when 
he  heard  of  them,  and  he  remonstrated  with  Wesley 
for  seeming  to  permit  or  encourage  them.  Men  were 
smitten  by  his  words  as  a  field  of  standing  corn  by  a 
tempest.  Intense  physical  agony  prostrated  them  upon 
the  ground.  They  stood  trembling,  with  fixed  eye- 
balls, staring  as  though  they  were  looking  into  eternal 
horrors.  Some,  who  seemed  utterly  incapable  of  any- 
thing  like  enthusiasm,  were  struck  as  dead.  Others 
beat  their  breasts  and  begged  for  forgiveness  for  their 
sins.  Others  were  actually  torn  and  maimed  in  uncon- 
scious convulsions.  The  story  of  the  demoniac  in  the 
gospels  was,  to  all  appearances,  realized  over  and 
over.  And  again,  under  his  assurances  of  full  for- 
giveness and  free  salvation,  the  storm  would  give  way 
to  calm,  and  these  same  persons  would  be  at  peace, 
ilothed,  and  in  their  right  minds.  Wresley  was  help- 
less ;  never  was  more  honest,  straightforward,  ingen- 


OR  GA  NIZA  TION.  311 

uous  work.  He  was  himself  amazed,  startled,  almost 
terrified,  but  "  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion,"  he  says, 
"that  we  must  all  suffer  God  to  carry  on  his  own 
work  in  the  way  that  pleaseth  Him."  I  am  not  anxious 
to  account  for  all  this.  Wesley's  attitude  was  the  right 
one.  There  is  one  simple  general  principle  with  which 
we  are  all  acquainted  which  seems  sufficient  to  cover 
all  the  cases,  namely,  that  every  thought,  every  emotion, 
every  mental  experience  infallibly  registers  itself  upon 
the  physical  nature.  It  is  the  law  of  smiles  and  tears, 
of  groans  and  laughter,  and  of  all  involuntary  gesture ; 
the  law  under  which  we  all  are,  whether  awake  or 
asleep,  listening  to  a  story,  a  song,  or  a  sermon.  The 
action  of  the  law  is  modified,  of  course,  by  the  quality 
of  the  natures  upon  which  it  works.  Wesley  was 
preaching  to  men  and  women  who  were  densely  igno- 
rant, in  many  cases,  of  the  nature  of  sin,  and  of  the 
story  of  God's  redemptive  mercy.  His  words  to  them 
were  as  truly  the  opening  of  an  Apocalypse  as  when 
John  saw  the  vision  of  his  Lord,  and  fell  at  his  feet 
as  dead. 

And  this  Bristol  experience  was  repeated,  over  and 
over  again,  through  all  England,  and  Ireland,  and 
Wales,  and  to  some  extent  in  Scotland. 

Methodism  now  (1739)  began  to  develop,  as  by 
some  inherent  law,  into  an  organization.  In  this  one 
year  two  or  three  great  steps  are  visible.  Wesley 
sent  out  his  first  lay  preacher.  It  was  simply  and 
naturally  an  expansion  that  is  always  to  be  looked  for 
when  men  have  learned  the  real  meaning  and  power 
of  the  gospel.  They  must  tell  it.  But  even  this  was, 
at  first,  a  shock  to  Wesley's  old  high  church  notions. 
Now  as  before,  however,  he  saw  that  human  notions 
of  order  and  form  must  give  way  to  higher  necessity. 


312  JOHN    WESLEY. 

He  would  not  ordain,  he  would  not  undertake  to  con- 
fer  any  clerical  prerogatives,  be  would  not  break  any 
known  rule  of  tbe  Churcb  of  England  as  by  law 
established .  He  simply  encouraged  men  to  tell  the 
glorious  truths  which  they  understood  and  felt.  Such 
was  the  beginning  of  that  system  of  itinerancy  by 
which,  from  first  to  last,  Wesley  had  seven  hundred 
men  under  his  direction,  penetrating  to  every  remote 
village  of  England.  This  same  year  too  was  built  the 
first  chapel,  the  old  Foundry  in  London,  mother  of  all 
the  Methodist  churches  in  the  world;  and  the  first 
Methodist  society  was  organized.  These  societies  were 
simple  companies  based  upon  the  plan  of  the  old 
Oxford  club,  and  for  the  same  purpose  of  mutual 
helpfulness  and  doing  good  to  others  in  every  possible 
way.  They  multiplied.  Everywhere  he  went  a  society 
was  formed.  But  how  could  their  permanent  v/elfare 
be  secured?  Who  should  watch  over  them  while  he 
was  moving  about  from  place  to  place,  absent  at 
times  from  any  given  place  long  months  together? 
A  happy  accident  reveals  the  method,  a  method  which 
has  been  one  great  source  of  strength  to  Methodism 
from  that  day  to  this.  The  Bristol  people  (in  1742) 
were  devising  ways  and  means  to  pay  for  their  chapel. 
One  proposes  that  the  society  shall  be  divided  into 
groups  of  twelve,  and  over  each  group  some  one  shall 
be  appointed  to  collect  from  every  member  a  penny  a 
week.  Wesley  approves,  and  with  his  keen  intuition 
he  at  once  sees,  and  seizes  upon,  the  plan  for  high  spir- 
itual ends.  Each  group  shall  be  a  little  class,  and 
the  leader,  who  takes  a  penny  a  week,  shall  also  keep 
account  of  each  member's  way  of  life  and  spiritual 
welfare.  So  the  class-meeting  was  born. 

I  cannot  go  on  from  this  point  to  detail  Wesley's 


APOSTOLIC   EXPERIENCES.  313 

grand  work.  My  object  has  been  chiefly  to  give  the 
story  of  his  relation  to  the  rise  of  a  great  reformatory 
movement.  When  he  was  but  thirty-six  years  old, 
he  had  already  leavened,  with  a  redemptive  force,  the 
social  life  of  his  century.  His  apostolate  continues 
through  more  than  fifty  years.  The  story  which 
St.  Paul  gives  of  his  labors  and  sufferings  in  the 
llth  chapter  of  his  Second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians 
might  have  been  almost  literally  adopted  by  Wesley  as 
the  record  of  his  own  :  — 

"  Are  they  ministers  of  Christ  ?  (I  speak  as  a  fool,) 
I  am  more  ;  in  labors  more  abundant,  in  stripes  above 
measure,  in  prisons  more  frequent,  in  deaths  oft. 

"  Of  the  Jews  five  times  received  I  forty  stripes  save 
one. 

"  Thrice  was  I  beaten  with  rods,  once  was  I  stoned, 
thrice  I  suffered  shipwreck,  a  night  and  a  day  I  have 
been  in  the  deep  ; 

"  In  journeyings  often,  in  perils  of  water,  in  perils 
of  robbers,  in  perils  by  mine  own  countrymen,  in 
perils  by  the  heathen,  in  perils  in  the  city,  in  perils 
in  the  wilderness,  in  perils  in  the  sea,  in  perils  among 
false  brethren ; 

"  In  weariness  and  painfulness,  in  watchings  often, 
in  hunger  and  thirst,  in  fastings  often,  in  cold  and 
nakedness. 

"  Beside  those  things  that  are  without,  that  which 
cometh  upon  me  daily,  the  care  of  all  the  churches." 

Indeed,  I  think  that  the  story  of  the  English  Apostle 
is  the  more  wonderful.  There  must  be  many  a  field 
in  Great  Britain  thick-sown  with  stones  which  have 
been  thrown  at  John  Wesley  and  his  proto-Methodists. 
Traveling  from  four  to  five  thousand  miles  every 
year,  and  preaching  from  two  to  four  times  nearly 


814  JOHN    WESLEY. 

every  day  to  audiences  of  thousands ;  often  disturbed 
by  mobs  of  men  more  savage  than  wild  beasts ;  keep- 
ing an  eye  on  all  his  preachers,  and  receiving  their 
reports ;  starting  a  publishing  house,  and  carrying  it 
on,  that  his  people  everywhere  might  have  wholesome 
intellectual  fare  within  their  scanty  means ;  taking 
no  money  but  just  what  would  suffice  for  his  bare 
expenses ;  stopping  for  no  storms  or  floods,  fires  or 
frosts ;  reading  and  studying  on  horseback,  and  an- 
swering innumerable  assaults  through  the  press,  from 
bishops,  archbishops,  and  ecclesiastical  foes  of  all 
ranks  ;  compiling  grammars  in  Greek,  and  Hebrew, 
and  French,  and  Latin,  for  his  students ;  editing, 
writing,  translating,  or  abridging  not  less  than  two 
hundred  different  publications  ;  eager  only,  in  it  all, 
to  save  men  and  to  extend  the  kingdom  of  God.  Half 
a  million  souls  were  to  be  numbered  as  his  adherents 
at  the  close  of  that  fifty  years  ;  and  outside  of  this,  a 
vast  multitude  that  no  man  can  number,  morally  and 
spiritually  benefited  by  his  movement.  He  is,  I  think, 
the  finest  illustration  of  consecrated,  unselfish,  whole- 
hearted devotion,  for  fifty  solid  years  of  this  old 
world's  dark  history,  that  the  Church  of  Christ  has 
ever  offered  to  the  vision  of  men,  perhaps  to  that  of 
angels. 


INDEX. 


Alexander  V.  elected  Pope,  59 ;  dies,  61. 

Alexander  VI.  (Roderigo  Borgia)  elected 
Pope,  87  ;  his  character,  88  ;  aims  con- 
cerning Italy,  88 ;  thwarted,  91 ;  con- 
flict with  Savonarola,  92-94. 

Amsterdam,  Separatists  at,  278. 

Anne  of  Bohemia,  and  Richard  II.,  49. 

Anne  Boleyn,  crowned  by  Cranmer,  140 ; 
favors  Latimer,  118,  119. 

Anne,  Queen,  character  of  her  age,  292. 

"  Antithesis,  Tii3,"  51. 

Antonio,  St.,  Prior  of  S.  Marco,  81. 

Architecture,  in  Eiward  III.'s  reign,  27. 

Armorer,  calling  of  the,  in  Middle  Ages, 
1G2. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  on  Emerson,  4. 

Arthur,  Prince,  question  of  his  marriage 
with  Katherine,  136. 

Augsburg  Confession,  176  :  and  Calvin's 
"  Institutes,"  210. 

Augsburg,  Diet  of,  called,  175. 

Augsburg  Interim,  177,  n. 

Ban,  The,  its  meaning,  11,  62 ;  Scott's 
description  of,  11,  12 ;  Tauler's  defi- 
ance of,  10 ;  Hus's  do.,  62  ;  Savonaro- 
la's do.,  93. 

Beaton,  Archbishop,  187 ;  cardinal,  191. 

Bethlehem  Chapel,  54r-57. 

Bible,  Wiclif  's  translation,  26  ;  inspira- 
tion, 104;  Cranmer's,  142;  its  recep- 
tion by  all  classes,  143 ;  Geneva,  198. 

Bilnay,  Thomas,  and  Erasmus's  Testa- 
ment, 106  ;  confesses  to  Latimer,  107  ; 
and  converts  him,  108. 

Black  Death,  at  Strasburg,  16 ;  universal 
ravages,  17  ;  effects,  18 ;  its  results  in 
England,  28. 

Black  Prince,  27. 

Bohemia,  its  relations  to  England,  47, 
48. 

Bonner,  Bishop,  conspires  with  Gardiner 
against  Cranmer,  146. 

Borgia,  Roderigo.    See  Alexander  VI. 

Bradford,  William,  on  Elder  Brevvster, 
272,  273  ;  at  Ssrooby,  274  ;  on  going  to 
Holland,  276  ;  imprisoned,  277  ;  on  the 
Pilgrims  at  Leyden,  280 ;  reasons  for 
going  to  America,  281. 

Brewster,  William,  265 ;  education,  271; 
his  library,  271  ;  court  life,  272  ;  Brad- 


ford's account  of,  272, 273  ;  at  Scrooby, 
274 ;  at  Amsterdam,  275  ;  at  Leyden, 
27G-283  ;  leader  of  the  Pilgrims,  284  ; 
in  New  England,  286. 

Briponnet,  William,  Bishop  of  Meaux, 
239,  240. 

Bruges,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  3o. 

Buchanan,  George,  191. 

Burrows,  Professor  Montagu,  estimate 
of  Wiclif,  30. 

Cabot,  discovery  of  North  American  con- 
tinent by,  161. 

Calvin,  209  ;  permanence  of  his  personal 
influence,  210  ;  the  pope  of  Protestant- 
ism, 211 ;  the  world's  obligations  to, 
212  ;  his  appearance  at  Geneva,  214 ; 
birth  and  early  years,  215  ;  as  a  stu- 
dent, 216  ;  goes  to  Orleans,  217  ;  knowl- 
edge of  jurisprudence,  217 ;  the  key  to 
his  system,  218 ;  returns  to  Paris,  219  ; 
position  on  the  divorce  question,  138, 
219  ;  arouses  the  wrath  of  the  Sorbon- 
ists,  220 ;  occasion  of  the  "  Institutes," 
220,  221 ;  sets  out  for  Basle,  and  stops 
at  Geneva,  221  ;  what  he  designed  at 
Geneva,  222,  223 ;  draws  up  a  confes- 
sion for  the  city,  and  banished,  223, 
224;  answers  Sadolet,  224;  at  Stras- 
burg, 224 ;  marriage,  225  ;  recalled  to 
Geneva,  226  ;  character  of  his  admin- 
istration, 227  ;  severity,  228  ;  his  mis- 
take, 229  ;  controversies,  230 ;  his  part 
in  the  affair  of  Servetus,  230-233  ;  the 
strength  and  weakness  of  his  system, 
233,  234;  corresponds  with  Coligny, 
^53 

Carlstadt,  Luther's  characterization  of, 
155;  discussion  with  Eck,  170;  con- 
verted by  "  Zwickau  Prophets,"  172. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  on  Knox,  quoted,  183. 

Carver,  John,  281. 

Channing,  Dr.,  and  Father  Taylor,  58,  n. 

Charles  II.,  literature  of  his  reign,  292. 

Charles  III.,  Duke  of  Savoy,  attempts 
the  subjugation  of  Geneva,  213. 

Charles  IV.,  Emperor,  founds  University 
of  Prague,  49. 

Charles  VIII.,  of  France,  descent  upon 
Italy,  89 ;  interview  with  Savonarola, 
90. 


316 


INDEX. 


Charles  IX.,  of  France,  relations  to  the 
Huguenots,  258-261. 

Chaucer,  27  ;  on  the  monks,  37  ;  his 
"  good  parson,"  41 ;  satires,  50  ;  com- 
pared with  Sir  David  Lyndsay,  185. 

Church,  of  England,  its  indebtedness  to 
Cranmer,  147. 

Class-meetings,  Methodist,  origin  of, 
312. 

Colet,  John,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  102; 
converted  by  Savonarola,  103  ;  revolts 
from  scholasticism,  104 ;  "new  depart- 
ure," 105. 

Coligny,  Gaspard  de,  237  ;  birth  and  par- 
entage, 246,  247  ;  training,  247,  248  ; 
Brantome's  estimate  of,  248 ;  adopts 
profession  of  arms,  249  ;  courage,  249  ; 
marriage,  250  ;  knighted,  250  ;  reforms 
the  army,  251 ;  Admiral  of  France, 
252  ;  siege  of  St.  Quentin,  252 ;  impris- 
onment, 253;  becomes  a  Huguenot, 
254 ;  retired  from  office,  256 ;  at  the 
assembly  of  notables,  257  ;  taken  into 
royal  favor,  258 ;  proscribed,  260  ;  as- 
sassinated, 261. 

Constance,  Council  of,  65;  burns  Hus, 
69  ;  burns  Wiclif' s  books  and  bones. 
100. 

Convocation,  first  Protestant  of  Church 
of  England,  120 ;  Latimer's  sermon 
before,  121. 

Council  of  Constance,  called,  64;  its 
magnitude,  65  ;  its  character  and  deal- 
ings with  Hus,  66-69. 

Council  of  Pisa,  59. 

Cranmer,  Thomas,  compared  with  Lati- 
mer  and  Ridley,  114 ;  invites  Latimer 
to  Lambeth,  122 ;  character  contrasted 
with  Latimer's,  129-131 ;  his  "  Scole- 
master,"  132;  invited  to  Oxford  by 
Wolsey,  133  ;  welcomes  the  new  learn- 
ing, 134  ;  casual  remark  upon  the  di- 
vorce question,  135-137  ;  sent  for  and 
employed  by  Henry,  137  ;  in  Germany, 
138  ;  made  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 

138  ;  his  protest  at  consecration,  139 ; 
pronounces  the  royal  marriage  void, 

139  ;  his  part  in  Henry's  matrimonial 
affairs,  140 ;  influence  in  Parliament, 
142  ;  procures  the  translation  of  the 
Bible,  142 ;  his  part  in  the  dissolution 
of    the    monasteries,    144  ;     protests 
against  perversion  of  church  revenues, 
145  ;  conspiracies  against  him,  146 ; 
his  charitable  temper,  146,  147 ;  head 
of  Council  of  Regency,  147  ;  liturgical 
work,  147  ;  consents  to  a  change  in 
the  succession,  148  ;  grounds  of  Mary's 
hatred,  149 ;  sent  to  Oxford,  150  ;  value 
of  his  recantations,  150 ;  prayer  and 
speech  at  martyrdom,  151-153. 

Creeps,  inadequate  expressions  of  truth, 
159. 

Cromwell,  Thomas,  High  Chancellor, 
122 ;  his  conduct  in  ecclesiastical  af- 
fairs, 144 ;  his  fall,  146. 

Cushman,  Robert  280. 


Davison,  William,  Secretary  of  State  to 
Queen  Elizabeth,  272 ;  relations  with 
Elder  Brewster,  272,  273. 

Diana  of  Poitiers,  240,  243. 

Duncan,  Dr.  John,  quoted,  158  ;  on  the 
progress  of  theology,  108,  169. 

Eck,  Dr.,  discussion  with  Luther,  170: 
and  Melancthon,  171. 

Eckart,  Master,  7. 

Edward  III.,  character  of  his  reign,  27, 
28  ;  resists  the  demands  of  Urban  V., 
31-33;  appoints  the  Bruges  Commis- 
sion, 34  ;  his  mistake,  36. 

Edward  VL,  Latimer's  sermons  before, 
108 ;  favors  Latimer,  122. 

Eidgenossen,  213. 

Eighteenth  century,  religious  character 
of,  291-293. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  her  relations  to  Puri- 
tanism, 268-271  ;  "the  petticoated 
Pope,"  269. 

Emerson,  a  mystic,  4. 

English  exiles,  on  the  continent,  270. 

English  language  becomes  national,  27. 

Enoch,  the  first  mystic,  5. 

Epworth,  296. 

Erasmus  of  Rotterdam,  103  ;  comes  to 
England,  105;  his  Greek  Testament, 
106  ;  superseded  by  Melancthon,  160  •, 
his  praise  of  Melancthon,  164. 

Escorial,  built,  252. 

Faber  Stapulensis  (Jacques  Le  Fevre 
d'Etaples),  Patriarch  of  French  Ref- 
ormation, 239. 

Farel,  Wiliam,  preaches  in  Geneva,  214 ; 
summons  Calvin  to  his  assistance,  221; 
banished  from  Geneva,  224 ;  in  France, 
239. 

Ferrara,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  76. 

Flagellants,  The,  18. 

Florence,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  75, 
80 ,  work  of  Savonarola  in,  87-91. 

Fra  Angelico,  75. 

France,  religion  in,  previous  to  sixteenth 
century,  237-241. 

Francis  I.,  character  of  his  policy,  242, 
243. 

Francis,  II.,  policy  towards  the  Hugue- 
nots, 256. 

Frederick  of  Austria,  dispute  with  Louis 
of  Bavaria,  10. 

Frederick,  the  Wise,  invites  Melancthon 
to  Wittenberg,  166. 

Free  Spirit,  Brethren  and  Sifters  of,  8. 

French  character,  the,  237,  238. 

Galley-Slave,  life  of,  195. 

Geneva,  212  ;  condition  in  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, 213  ;  Farel  at,  214 ;  state  of  af- 
fairs when  Calvin  came,  214 ;  Calvin's 
work  in,  222, 223  ;  banishes  Calvin  and 
Farel,  224  ;  Geneva  without  Cab-in, 
225  ;  recalls  Calvin,  226  ;  reformation 
in,  227-229 ;  Servetus  arrives  at,  231  ; 
scheme  of  government,  225. 


INDEX. 


317 


Georgia,  colonized,  306. 

"  Gesta  Roinanorum,"  text-book  of  the 

monks,  165. 

Golden  Fleece,  Order  of  the,  35. 
Gregory  XI.,  bulls  against  Wiclif,  37  ; 

dies,  37. 
Grey,  Lady  Jane,  Edward's  will  in  her 

favor,  148. 

Grocyn,  William,  103. 
Grosseteste,  Robert,  bishop  of  Lincoln, 

30,  32. 

Guise,  Francis  of,  248. 
Guizot,  upon  Calvin,  222. 

Hamilton,  Patrick,  link  between  German 
and  Scottish  reformation,  187  ;  burned 
by  Beaton,  187  ;  his  reik,  188,  191. 

Henry  II.,  of  France,  his  attitude  to- 
wards Huguenots,  243;  Knights  Co- 
ligny,  250  ;  negotiates  the  treaty  of 
Vaucelles,  252  ;  death,  258,  n. 

Henry  VIII. ,  calls  upon  the  Universities 
to  appoint  Divorce  Commission,  115  ; 
summons  Latimer  to  preach  before 
him,  116  ;  appoints  commission  upon 
religious  books  116  ;  makes  Latimer 
his  chaplain,  117  ;  his  present  from 
Latimer,  120 ;  death,  121 ;  always  a 
papist,  130,  2G7  ;  at  Waltham  Abbey, 
136 ;  hears  of  Cranmer  and  sends  for 
him,  137  ;  nominates  him  archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  138;  hia  matrimonial 
affairs,  140  ;  calls  Cromwell  to  his  as- 
sistance, 144  ;  appropriation  of  eccle- 
siastical revenues,  145,  267  ;  Henry's 
will,  148  ;  lodged  at  Scrooby,  271. 

"  Heretics'  Koran,"  211. 

"  High  Commission,"  court  of,  269. 

Hooper,  Bishop,  his  characterization  of 
Cranmer,  129. 

Huguenots,  derivation  of  name,  213; 
their  origin,  238-242;  first  organiza- 
tion of,  245 ;  first  general  synod,  246  : 
Coligny  at  the  head  of,  255,  257  ;  mas- 
sacres of,  257,  259, 260,  261 ;  America's 
debt  to,  262. 

Hus,  John,  relations  to  Luther  and 
Wiclif,  25 ;  birth,  51  ;  early  training, 
52;  his  mother,  52;  goes  to  Prague, 
53 ;  at  the  university,  54 ;  in  Bethlehem 
Chapel,  54-57 ;  rector  of  the  univer- 
sity, 57  ;  extent  of  influence,  57  ;  uses 
Wiclif 's  work,  57,  n.  ;  opposed  to  Ger- 
man students,  58  ;  against  the  mendi- 
cants, 59;  conflict  with  archbishop, 
60 ;  appeals  to  the  pope,  60 ;  excom- 
municated, 60  ;  under  the  ban,  62  ;  a 
wanderer,  63 ;  goes  to  the  Council  of 
Constance,  66  ;  imprisonment,  67  ;  de- 
gradation and  martyrdom,  68,  69 ;  last 
words,  69. 

fiussism,  in  Scotland,  186. 

Immanence  of  God,  peculiar  doctrine  of 

the  Mystics,  9. 
Innocent   III.,   Pope,    imposes    tribute 

upon  King  John,  31. 


Innocent  VHL,  Pope,  87. 

Inspiration,  of  the  book?  — or  of  the 

writers  ?  104. 
"  Institutes  of  the  Christian  Religion," 

Calvin's,  when  and  why  written,  220. 
Italy,    political    condition   in    fifteenth 

century,  73 ;  descent  upon  by  Charles 

VIII.,  i.9. 

James  I.,  "  harries  "  the  Separatists,  271, 
275. 

Jerome  of  Prague,  54. 

Jews,  race-hate  against,  18. 

John,  King,  tribute  imposed  upon  by 
Innocent  III.,  31. 

John  of  Gaunt,  befriends  Wiclif ,  37. 

John  XXIII.,  Pope,  character,  61 ;  bans 
Hus,  02  ;  arranges  for  Council  of  Con- 
stance, 64. 

Jurisprudence,  growth  of,  in  England, 
27,  28. 

Justification,  Wesley's  doctrine  of,  301. 

Katherine  of  Arragon,  her  divorce,  com- 
plications of  the  question,  135  ;  Cran- 
mer's  view,  136  ;  Cranmer  pronounces 
her  marriage  void,  139 ;  a  martyr,  140. 

Kingeley,  Charles,  anecdote  of,  305. 

Kncx,  John,  183,  graduates  at  Glargow, 
188;  the  Scottish  Latimer,  189;  what 
he  learned  at  college,  189,  190 ;  devo- 
tion to  George  Wkhart,  192  ;  diffidence, 
193;  in  castle  of  St.  Andrews,  193; 
made  preacher  to  the  garrison,  194 ;  in 
the  galleys,  195;  his  courage,  196; 
chaplain  to  Edward  VI.,  197  ;  offered 
a  bishopric,  197  ;  driven  to  the  Con- 
tinent, 198  ;  relations  to  Calvin,  199  ; 
"First  Bla£t,"200;  returns  to  Scot- 
land, 200  ;  iccnoclasm,  201 ;  pastor  at 
Edinburgh,  202 ;  bearing  before  Mary 
Stuart,  203,  204 ;  power  in  Scotland, 
204  ;  his  vindication,  205. 

Latimer,  Hugh,  99  ;  birth,  108 ;  his 
father  and  his  early  home  108,  109 ; 
at  Cambridge,  110 ;  a  typical  English- 
man, 110  ;  an  obstructive,  111 ;  oration 
against  Melancthon,  107  ;  Converted 
by  Bilney,  108;  his  preaching,  112; 
before  the  Bishop  of  Ely,  133;  cited 
before  Wolsfey,  113  ;  protected  and 
licensed  by  him,  114;  upon  the  Di- 
vorce Commission,  115 ;  preaches  be- 
fore Henry,  116  ;  upon  commission  to 
examine  religious  books,  116  ;  his  letter 
to  Henry,  117  ;  a  royal  chaplain,  117  ; 
rector  of  Kington,  118  ;  all  England 
his  parish,  118  ;  bishop  of  Worcester, 
119  ;  new  year's  gift  to  the  king,  120 ; 
position  on  disestablishment  of  monas- 
teries, 120 ;  sermon  before  convoca- 
tion, 121  ;  resigns  bishopric,  121 ;  im- 
prisonment, 121;  in  favor  with  Edward, 
122 ;  popular  as  a  preacher,  122  ;  with 
Cranmer  at  Lambeth,  122  ;  imprisoned 
by  Mary,  123  ;  will  not  dispute  at  Ox- 


318 


INDEX. 


ford,  124 ;  burned,  124  ;  character  con- 
trasted with  Cranmer's,  129-131. 

Latin,  tiie  common  language,  49. 

Laval,  Charlotte  de,  250,  253. 

Le  Bas,  C.  W.,  quoted,  38. 

Lechler,  Dr.,  quoted,  29. 

LeFevre.    Sae  Faber. 

Leipsic  discussion,  170. 

Leipsic  Interim,  177. 

Leipsic  University,  origin  of,  58. 

L'Enf  ant,  description  oi  Has's  degrada- 
tion, 68,  n. 

Leo  X.,  Pope,  213. 

Leo  XL,  Pope,  211. 

Leyden,  Saparatists  at,  279-283;  the 
city  and  its  university,  279. 

Library,  Liurentian,  75. 

Linacre,  Thomas,  102. 

Lollardism,  100  ;  in  Scotland,  186. 

Longland,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  persecutes 
Wiclifites,  101. 

Loserth,  Dr.  J.,  quoted,  30. 

Louis  of  Bavaria,  dispute  of,  with  Fred- 
erick of  Austria,  10, 11. 

Luther,  Martin,  his  relations  to  Husand 
Wiclif,  25,  26;  to  Melancthon,  157, 
158;  his  characterization  of  M3l\n> 
thon,  155,  157  ;  relation  of  his  work  to 
Melancthon's,  160,  161 ;  aided  by  Ms- 
lanothon,  168 ;  imprisoned,  171 ;  his 
doctrine  of  "  Consubstantiation,"  174 ; 
naturally  a  belligerent,  178 ;  grows 
cool  towards  Melancthon,  177  ;  death, 
and  Melancthon's  oration,  177  ;  points 
of  difference  between  Malancthonand, 
179  ;  compared  with  Calvin,  210. 

Lutterworth,  36,  54. 

Lynisay,  Sir  David,  of  the  Mount,  185, 
190,  193. 

Maldon,  William,  his  cruel  treatment, 
143,  n. 

Mamelukes,  nickname,  213. 

Marburg  Conference,  174. 

Marot,  Clement,  240. 

Mary,  accession,  123,  149 ;  grounds  of 
her  bitterness  against  Cranmsr,  149. 

Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  comes  to  Scot- 
land, 201 ;  her  history,  202  ;  relations 
with  Knox,  203,  204. 

Maximilian,  Emperor,  162. 

"  Mayflower,  The,"  283,  284. 

Medicis,  Alexander  de,  visits  birthplace 
of  Calvin,  211. 

Medicis,  Catherine  de,  243 ;  plots  alter- 
nately  against  the  Guises  and  the  Hu- 
guenots, 258,  260  ;  plans  the  Massacre 
of  St.  Bartholomew,  261. 

Medicis,  Cosmo  de,  75  ;  builds  San  Mar- 
co, 80. 

Medicis,  Lorenzo  de,  character,  82  ;  or- 
ders Savonarola  to  Florence,  84 ;  tries 
to  bribe  him,  86  ;  his  death-bed,  87. 

Medicis,  Piero  de,  succeeds  Lorenzo,  87  ; 
character,  87  ;  betrays  Florence  to 
Charles  VIII.,  89. 

Melancthon,  Philip,  157  ;  Luther's  char- 


acterization of,  155,  157 ;  his  protest 
against  Luther's  Protestantism,  159 ; 
supersedes  Erasmus  as  a  reiormer, 
160 ;  relation  of  his  work  to  Luther's, 
160,  161 ;  his  birth  and  parentage,  161, 
162 ;  Reuchlin's  affection  for,  163  ;  his 
name  changed,  164  ;  goes  to  Heidel- 
berg, 164  ;  to  Tiibingen,  164  ;  Erasmus 
praises  him,  164  ;  development  of  his 
piety,  165  ;  called  to  Wittenberg,  166  ; 
conquest  of  city  and  university,  167  ; 
method  of  his  instruction,  167 ;  ren- 
ders aid  to  Luther,  168;  "Loci  Com- 
munes," 169  ;  fortunes  of  the  book, 
170  ;  involved  in  controversy,  170  ; 
leader  of  the  Reformation,  171 ;  toler- 
ation of  "Zwickau  Prophets,"  172; 
instructions  for  Saxon  ministers,  173  ; 
relation  to  second  Diet  of  Spires,  173  ; 
and  to  Marburg  Conference,  174  ;  re- 
port on  the  Sacramsntal  Controversy, 
175 ;  at  Diet  of  Augsburg,  175 ;  draws 
up  the  "Confession,"  176;  concilia- 
tory temper,  176  ;  signs  the  Smalcali 
Articles,  176  ;  funeral  oration  for  Lu- 
ther, 177  ;  points  of  difference  bet  ween 
Luther  and,  179  ;  anecdote  of  Zall  and, 
179,  n. ;  death,  180. 

Mandicants,  in  England,  37  ;  origin,  38, 
39 ;  rapacity,  39. 

Methodism,  rise  of,  294 ;  saved  England 
from  revolution,  293;  rapid  growth, 
295;  its  debt  to  Susannah  Wesley, 
299 ;  early  doctrines  of,  300  ;  a  move- 
ment within,  not  from  the  church,  303, 
304 ;  its  development  in  organization, 
311. 

Msthodists,  the  Oxford,  294,  304. 

Michael  Angelo,  75. 

Milton,  John,  on  Wiclif,  42. 

Mirandola,  Pico  della,  hears  Savonarola, 
84. 

Monasteries,  dissolution  of  by  Henry 
VIII.,  144,  145. 

Money,  value  of  in  fourteenth  century, 
32. 

Montmorenci,  Louise  de,  246,  247. 

Moravians,  their  influence  upon  Wesley. 
307. 

Miihlberg,  battle  of,  177,  n. 

Murray,  regent  of  Scotland,  205. 

Mystic,  the  first,  5. 

Mysticism,  a  reaction,  4 ;  indefinable,  4  ; 
found  under  all  systems,  5 ;  perver- 
sions of,  9. 

Mystics,  the  German,  5. 

Navarre,  house  of,  258  ;  Anthony,  king 

of,  258;  Henry  of,  261. 
Nicholas  of  Basle,  rebukes  Tauler,  14. 

<Ecolampadiu«,  position  on  the  divorce 

question,  138. 
Oelethorpe,   General    James,   colonizes 

Georgia,  306. 
Orleans,  Calvin  at,  217. 
Osiander.  Cranmer  marries  niece  of,  138. 


INDEX. 


319 


Paris,  Calvin  at,  216,  219. 

Parliament,  English,  its  response  to  Ur- 

Pilgrims,'  The,  at  Scrooby,  274  ;  their 
view  01  the  church  relation,  275,  286  ; 
"  harried,"  276,  277  ;  at  Amsterdam, 
278  ;  at  Leyden,  279-281  ;  their  reasons 
for  going  to  the  New  World,  281 ;  de- 
parture from  Holland,  283  ;  their  voy- 
age, 284  ;  in  America,  285-287. 

Pisa,  Council  of,  59. 

Plymouth  Pilgrimage,  its  connection 
with  the  English  Reformation,  266. 

Plymouth  Rock,  Hon.  R.  C.  Winthrop 
concerning,  285. 

"  Poor  priestV  Wiclif's,  41. 

Prsemunire,  statute  of,  28. 

Prague,  ancient  missal  of,  25  ;  university 

"  Protest,  The,"  at  Diet  of  Spires,  174. 
Protestantism,     necessity     of      protest 

against,  158. 
Puritanism,  origin  of,  267. 

Religion,  has  both  body  and  soul,  3. 
Reuchlin,  his  affection  for  Melancthon, 

Revival  of  learning,  its  coalescence  with 
the  Rsformation,  160. 

Richard  II.,  marriea  Anne  of  Bohemia, 
49. 

Ri 'lay,  Nicolas,  burning  of,  124. 

Robinson,  John,  at  Scrooby,  274;  hon- 
ored hi  Holland,  279. 

Sadolet,  Cardinal,  endeavors  to  reestab- 
luh  papal  authority  in  Geneva,  224 ; 
silenced  by  Calvin,  225. 
San  Marco,  convent  of,  80,  81. 
Savonarola,  Girolamo,  isolation  of  his 
wo-k,  74  ;  birth,  75  ;  character  in  boy- 
hood, 76,  77;  falls  in  love,  78  ;  goes  to 
Bologna,  78;  a  novice,   79;   sent  to 
F^rrara,  80 ;  to  Florence,  80  ;  in  San 
Marco,  81  ;  becomes  acquainted  with 
Lorenzo,  82  ;  preaches  in  Lombardy. 
83-   at  a  chapter  of  his  order,   84: 
heard  by  Pico,  84  :  preaching  in  Flor- 
ence, 85 ;  conflict  with  Lorenzo,  86 
popular  as  Prior,  88;  leader  of  the 
people.  88  ;  sent  to  Charles  VIII.,  90 
legislator,  90  ;  reforms  Florence,  91  ; 
conflict  with  Alexander  VI.,  91,  92  ; 
refuses  prelatic  honors,  92  ;    braves 
ban  and  plxgue,  93;  endeavors  for  a 
general  council,  and  failure,  94 ;  events 
leading  to  his  martyrdom,  94,  95 ;  ob- 
scure connection  with  English  reform- 
ers, 102  ;  succession  of  influence  from 
Sv/onarola  to  Latimer,  108. 

Savoyard  party  in  Geneva,  213. 

Schism,  papal,  37,  59. 

Scholasticism,  its  view  of  Christianity,  b. 

Schwarzerd,  George,  162. 

Sohwarzerd,  Philip.     See  Melancthon. 

Scotland,  condition  of  before  the  Refor- 
mation, 183-187. 


Scott,  Sir  Walter,  description  of  the  ban, 

Scro'ooy,  271 ;  Brewster  at,  273 ;  Sepa- 
ratists at,  274-276 ;  covenant  of  church 
at,  274. 

Separatism,  origin  of,  269. 

Servetus,  Michael,  at  Pans,  230  ;  at  Vi- 
enne,  231  ;  at  Geneva,  231 ;  trial  and 
execution,  232,  233. 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  in  France,  247. 

Sigisraund,  Emperor,  arranges  lor  Coun- 
cil of  Constance,  64  ;  his  perfidy,  69. 
Six  Articles,"  Act,  121. 

Smalcald  Convention,  176. 

Somerset,  Lord  Protector,  123. 

"  Speedwell,  The,"  283,  284. 

Spires,  Diets  of,  173,  174. 

Stafford,  George,  110. 

Staudish,  Miles,  280. 

Stanley,  A.  P.,  quoted,  191,  n. 

St.  Bartholomew,  massacre  of,  205,  260- 
262. 

St.  Quentin,  siege  of,  252. 

Strasburg,  Tauler's  birthplace,  6;  put 
under  the  ban,  11 ;  black  death  at,  16 ; 
Jews  persecuted  at,  18 ;  Calvin  at,  224. 

Students,  free  movement  of,  50. 

Supremacy,  Act  of,  269. 

Swiss  Reformers,  their  view  of  the  sac- 
rament, 175. 

Symbols,  inadequate  expressions  of 
truth,  159. 

Tauler,  John,  forerunner  of  Luther,  5  ; 
birth,  6  ;  goes  to  Paris,  dissatisfied 
with  scholasticism,  6  ;  returns  to  Stras- 
burg, 7  ;  his  teaching,  8  ;  relations  to 
Eckart  and  his  teaching,  9  ;  defies  the 
ban,  10  ;  urges  his  brethren  to  disre- 
gard it,  13  ;  conversion,  13  ;  rebuked 
by  Nicholas  of  Basle,  14 ;  humility, 
15;  "Doctor  Illuminatus,"  16;  his 
covenant,  16 ;  braves  the  plague,  19 ; 
chivalry,  20. 

Taylor,  Father,  anecdote  of,  58,  n. 

Tetzel  and  Luther,  167. 

Theology,  progress  of,  from  Athanasms 
to  Calvin,  168,  169. 

Toulouse,  massacre  of,  259. 

Truth,  perpetually  renovating  its  expres- 
sion, 159. 

Tulloch,  Principal,  on  Scottish  icono- 
clasm,  201. 

Tusser,  Thomas,  his  complaint  concern- 
ing his  schoolmaster,  132. 

Udall,  Nicholas,  head  master  of  Eton. 

132. 

Uniformity,  Act  of,  268. 
Urban  V.,  demand  upon  Edward  III., 

31 ;  resisted  by  Parliament,  33. 

Vasco  da  Gama,  Cape  of  Good  Hope 

doubled  by,  161. 
Vassy,  massacre  of,  259. 

Waldo,  Peter,  238. 


320 


INDEX. 


Waltham,  King  Henry  and  Cranmer  at, 
136. 

Wesley,  Charles,  296,  300. 

Wesley,  John,  291 ;  birth  and  parentage, 
296 ;  has  the  small-pox,  297  ;  at  the 
Charterhouse  school,  and  "fall  from 
grace,"  297  ;  goes  to  Oxford,  297  ;  be- 
lieves in  ghosts,  298 ;  religious  opin- 
ions formed  by  his  mother,  299  ;  or- 
dained a  deacon,  299;  scholarship, 
300  ;  formal  statement  of  his  doctrines, 
301,  302  ;  his  position  in  relation  to 
Church  of  England,  303  ;  leader  of  the 
Oxford  Methodists,  304 ;  his  generos- 
ity, 305  ;  letter  to  excise  commissioner, 
306 ;  goes  to  Georgia,  307  ;  what  he 
learns  from  the  Moravians,  308  ;  re- 
turns to  England,  308 ;  helps  White- 
field,  309  ;  field-preacher,  310  ;  expe- 
riences at  Bristol,  310,  311 ;  his  itiner- 
ants, 312  ;  apostolic  experiences,  313 ; 
variety  of  his  labors,  314. 

Wesley,  Rev.  Samuel,  rector  of  Epworth, 
296. 

Wesley,  Susannah,  296;  debt  of  Meth- 
odism to,  299. 

Whitefield,  George,  among  the  Oxford 
Methodists,  304 ;  preaching  at  Bristol, 
309. 

Wiclif,  John,  relations  to  Hus  and  Lu- 
ther, 25,  26 ;  times  of,  27  ;  writings,  29  ; 
birth  and  early  training,  30  ;  historical 


development  of  his  work,  31  :  opposes 
Urban  V.,  31-34;  in  Parliament,  34; 
at  Bruges,  34  ;  Edward's  confidence  in 
him,  35  ;  failure  at  Bruges,  36  ;  rector 
of  Lutterworth,  36;  before  convoca- 
tion, 36  ;  religious  reformer,  37  ;  fights 
the  Mendicants,  37-40;  his  "poor 
priests,"  41  ;  relations  to  Protestant 
theology,  42 ;  literary  labors,  42 ;  re- 
lation to  English  literature,  43  ;  death, 
44 ;  works  preserved  in  Vienna,  49 ; 
condemned  by  University  of  Prague, 
58  ;  bones  burned  by  Council  of  Con- 
stance, 100  ;  posthumous  influence  in 
England,  99-101. 

Winslow,  Edward,  281,  282. 

Winthrop,  Hon.  Robert  C.,  on  landing 
of  the  Pilgrims,  285. 

Wishart,  George,  191 ;  his  martyrdom, 
193. 

Wittenberg,  Melancthon,  called  to,  166  ; 
enthusiasm  at,  167. 

Wolsey,  Cardinal,  cites  Latimer,  113; 
and  befriends  him,  114  ;  invites  Cran- 
mer to  Oxford,  133. 

Wykeham,  William,  founds  Winchester 
school,  27. 

Zell,  of  Strasburg,  anecdote,  179,  n. 
"Zwickau  Prophets,"  171. 
Zwingli,  position  on  the  divorce  ques- 
tion, 138. 


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ARTS  WILLMOTT.  Also,  the  Sacred  Poems  and  Private  Ejacula- 
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Crown  8vo,  gilt  top,  $1.75  ;  half  calf,  $3.50. 

Rev.  S.  E.  Herrick. 

SOME  HERETICS  OF  YESTERDAY.     Crown  8vo,  $1.50. 

CONTENTS:  Tan  ler  and  the  Mystics  ;  Wicklif;  John  Hus;  Savon- 
arola; Latimcr;  Cranmer;  Melancthon;  Knox;  Calvin;  Coligny ; 
William  Brewster ;  John  Wesley. 

Thomas  Hughes. 

THE  MANLINESS  OF  CHRIST.  16mo,  $1.00;  paper  covers, 
25  cents. 


6  Religions  Publications  of 

It  is  shown  with  great  force  that  the  "  Life  of  Christ "  was  not  only 
a  manly  life,  but  ike  manly  life  of  all  history.  —  Examiner  and  Chron- 
icle (.New  York). 

Hymns  of  the  Ages. 

HYMNS  OF  THE  AGES.  First,  Second,  and  Third  Series. 
Each  in  one  volume,  illustrated  with  steel  vignettes.  12mo,  $1.50 
each ;  half  calf,  $9.00  a  set. 

Henry  James. 

THE  SECRET  OF  SWEDENBORG.     Being  an  Elucidation  of 
his  Doctrine  of  the  Divine  Natural  Humanity.     8\o,  $2.50. 
We  admire  the  metaphysical  acuteness,  the  logical  power  and  the 
singular  literary  force  of  the  book,  which  is  also  remarkable  as  car- 
rying into  theological  writing  something  besides  the  hard  words  of 
secular  dispute,  and  as  presenting  to  the.  world  the  great  questions 
of   theology   iu    something    beside   a    Sabbath-day    dress.  —  Atlantic 
Month/ 1/. 

SOCIETY  THE  REDEEMED  FORM  OF  MAN,  AND  THE  EAR- 
NEST OF  GOD'S  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  HUMAN  NATURE.  Affirmed  in 
Letters  to  a  friend.  Crown  8vo,  $2.00. 

Samuel  Johnson. 

ORIENTAL  RELIGIONS,  AND  THEIR  RELATION  TO  UNIVER- 
SAL RELIGION.  By  SAMUEL  JOHNSON. 

INDIA.     8vo,  810  pages,  $5.00  ;  half  calf,  $8.00. 

Samuel  Johnson's  remarkable  work  is  devoted  wholly  to  the  relig- 
ions and  civilization  of  India;  is  the  result  of  twenty  years'  sti.dy 
and  reflection  by  one  of  the  soundest  srholars  and  most  acute  think- 
ers of  New  England,  and  must  be  treated  with  all  respect,  whether 
we  consider  its  thoroughness,  its  logical  reasoning,  or  the  conclusion, 
unacceptable  to  the  majority,  no  doubt,  at  which  it  arrives.  —  Repub- 
lican (Springfield). 

CHINA.     8vo,  1000  pages,  $5.00;  half  calf,  $8.00. 

Altogether  the  work  of  Mr.  Johnson  is  an  extraordinarily  rich 
mine  of  reliable  and  far-reaching  information  on  all  literary  subjects 
connected  with  China.  .  .  .  He  decidedly  impresses  us  as  an  author- 
ity on  Chinese  subjects.  —  E.  J.  EITEL,  Ph.  I).,  Editor  of  The  China 
Review  (Hong  Kong). 

PERSIA.     8vo,  829  pages,  $5.00;  half  calf,  $8.00. 

LECTURES,  ESSAYS,  AND  SERMONS.  With  a  portrait  and 
Memoir  bv  Kev.  SAMUEL  LONGFELLOW.  Crown  8vo,  gilt  top, 
$1.75 

This  volume  contains,  in  addition  to  a  Memoir  of  Mr.  Johnson  and 
other  articles.  Sermons  on  the  Law  of  the  Blessed  Life,  Gain  in  Loss, 
The  Search  for  God,  Fate,  Living  by  Faith,  The  Duty  of  Delight, 
and  Transcendentalism. 


Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  7 

Thomas  Starr  King. 

CHRISTIANITY  AND  HUMANITY.  Sermons.  Edited,  with 
a  Memoir,  by  EDWIN  P.  WHIPPLE.  Fine  steel  portrait.  16mo, 
$2.00. 

The  Koran. 

SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  KORAN.     By  EDWARD  WILLIAM 
LANE.     Second  Edition,  revised  and  enlarged,  with  an  introduction 
by  STANLEY  LANE  POOLE.     8vo,  gilt  top,  $3.50. 
See  WHERRY  (Rev.  E.  M.). 

Alvan  Lamson,  D.  D. 

THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FIRST  THREE  CENTURIES  ;  or,  No- 
tices of  the  Lives  and  Opinions  of  the  Early  Fathers,  with  special 
reference  to  the  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity  ;  illustrating  its  late  origin 
and  gradual  formation.  Revised  and  enlarged  edition.  8vo,  $2.50. 

Lucy  Larcom. 
BREATHINGS    OF   THE   BETTER   LIFE.     *'  Little   Classic " 

style.     18mo,  $1.25;  half  calf,  $3.00. 

A  book  of  choice  selections  from  the  best  religious  writers  of  all 
times. 

Henry  C.  Lea. 

SACERDOTAL    CELIBACY    IN    THE    CHRISTIAN    CHURCH. 

Second  Edition,  considerably  enlarged.     8vo,  $4.50. 

One  of  the  most  valuable  works  that  America  has  produced.  Since 
the  great  history  of  Dean  Milman,  I  know  no  work  in  English  which 
has  thrown  more  light  on  the  moral  condition  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  none  which  is  more  fitted  to  dispel  the  gross  illusions  concerning 
that  period  which  Positive  writers  and  writers  of  a  certain  ecclesiasti- 
cal school  have  conspired  to  sustain.  —  W.  E.  H.  LECKY,  in  History 
of  European  Morals. 

Samuel  Longfellow  and  Samuel  Johnson. 

HYMNS  OF  THE  SPIRIT.     16mo,  roan,  $1.25. 
A  collection  of  remarkable  excellence. 

W.  A.  McVickar,  D.  D. 

LIFE  OF  THE  REV.  JOHN  McViCKAR,  S.  T.  D.  With  por- 
trait. Crown  8vo,  $2.00. 

William  Mountford. 

EUTHANASY;  or,  Happy  Talk  towards  the  End  of  Life. 
New  Edition,  12mo,  gilt  top,  $2.00. 

Rev.  T.  Mozley. 

REMINISCENCES,  chiefly  of  Oriel  College  and  the  Oxford 
_JVfovemeut.     2  vols.  16mo,  $3.00  ;  half  calf,  S6.00. 


8  Religious  Publications  of 

Many  before  now  —  Oakley,  Froude,  Kennard,  not  to  mention 
Newman  himself  —  have  contributed  to  the  story  of  the  Tractarian 
Movement.  None  of  these,  not  even  the  famous  Apologia,  will  com- 
pare with  the  volumes  now  before  us  in  respect  to  minute  fullness, 
close  personal  observation,  and  characteristic  touches.  —  Prof.  PAT- 
TISON,  in  The  Academy  (London). 

Elisha  Mulford,  LL.  D. 

THE  REPUBLIC  OF  GOD.     8vo,  $2.00. 

A  book  which  will  not  be  mastered  by  hasty  reading,  nor  by  a  cool, 
scientific  dissection.  We  do  not  remember"  that  this  country  has 
lately  produced  a  speculative  work  of  more  originality  and  force.  .  .  . 
The  "book  is  a  noble  one  —  broad-minded,  deep,  breathing  forth  an 
ever-present  consciousness  of  things  unseen.  It  is  a  mental  and  moral 
tonic  which  might  do  us  all  good.  —  The  Critic  (New  York). 

No  book  on  the  statement  of  the  great  truths  of  Christianity  at 
once  so  fresh,  so  clear,  so  fundamental,  and  so  fully  grasping  and 
solving  the  religious  problems  of  our  time,  has  yet  been  written  by 
any  American.  —  Advertiser  (Boston). 

It  is  the  most  important  contribution  to  theological  literature  thus 
far  made  by  any  American  writer.  —  The  Churchman  (New  York). 

Rev.  T.  T.  Hunger. 

THE  FREEDOM  OF  FAITH.     Sermons.     16mo,  $1.50. 

CONTENTS  :  Prefatory  Essay  :  The  New  Theology  ;  On  Reception 
of  New  Truth ;  God  our  Shield ;  God  our  Reward ;  Love  to  the 
Christ  as  a  Person  ;  The  Christ's  Pity ;  The  Christ  as  a  Preacher ; 
Land-Tenure ;  Moral  Environment ;  Immortality  and  Science ;  Im- 
mortality and  Nature  ;  Immortality  as  Taught  by  the  Christ ;  Th 
Christ's  Treatment  of  Death ;  The  Resurrection  from  the  Dea<., 
The  Method  of  Penalty;  Judgment;  Life  a  Gain;  Things  to  be 
Awaited. 

Mr.  Munger's  book  is  the  most  forcible  and  posiiive  expression  of 
the  beliefs  which  are  now  in  process  of  formation  that  has  appeared 
in  this  country. —  Times  (New  York). 

LAMPS  AND  PATHS.     Sermons  for  Children.     16mo,  $1.00. 

J.  A.  W.  Neander. 

GENERAL    HISTORY  OF  THE    CHRISTIAN    RELIGION  AND 
CHURCH.     Translated  from  the  German  by  Rev.  JOSEPH  TORREY, 
Professor  in  the  University  of  Vermont.     With  an  Index  volume 
The  set,  with  Index,  6  vols.,  $20.00.   Index  volume,  separate,  $3.00. 
"Neander's  Church  History"  is  one  of   the  most  profound,  care- 
fully considered,  deeply  philosophized,  candid,  truly  liberal,  and  iu- 
depeudent  historical  works  that  have  ever  been  written.     Jn  all  these 
respects  it  stands  head  and  shoulders  above  almost  any  other  church 
history  in  existence.  —  Professor  CALVIN  E.  STOWE,  Andover,  Mass. 


Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  9 

Illustrated  New  Testament. 

THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  OP  OUR  LORD  AND  SAVIOUR 
JESUS  CHRIST.  With  engravings  on  wood  from  designs  of  Fra 
An^elico,  Pietro  Perugino,  Francesco  Francia,  Lorenzo  di  Credi, 
Fra  Bartolommeo,  Titian,  Raphael,  Gaudenzio  Ferrari,  Daniel  di 
Volterra,  and  others.  Royal  4to,  full  gilt,  540  pages,  $10.00  ;  full 
morocco,  $20.00;  full  levant,  extra,  $25.00. 

This  elegant  and   sumptuous  edition  of  the  New  Testament  is  ad- 
mirably suited  for  a  gift  to  a  pastor  or  friend.     The  "  King  James 
version  of  the  text  is  the  one  used. 

Blaise  Pascal. 

THOUGHTS,  LETTERS,  AND  OPUSCULES.  Translated  from 
the  French  by  O.  W.  WIGHT,  A.  M.,  with  Introductory  Notices 
and  Notes.  12mo,  $2.25. 

PROVINCIAL  LETTERS.  A  new  Translation,  with  Histori- 
cal Introduction  and  Notes  by  Rev.  THOMAS  McCmE,  preceded 
by  a  Life  of  Pascal,  a  Critical  Essay,  and  a  Biographical  Notice. 
12mo,  $2.25;  the  set,  2  vols.  half  calf,  $8.00. 

Peep  of  Day  Series. 

PEEP  OP  DAY  SERIES.  Comprising  "  The  Peep  of  Day," 
"Precept  upon  Precept,"  and  "Line  upon  Line."  3  vols.  16mo, 
each  50  cents  ;  the  set,  $1.50. 

Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps. 
THE  GATES  AJAR.     16mo,  $1.50. 

Of  all  the  books  which  we  ever  read,  calculated  to  shed  light  upon 
the  utter  darkness  of  sudden  sorrow,  and  to  bring  peace  to  the  be- 
reaved and  solitary,  we  give,  in  many  important  respects,  the  prefer- 
ence to  "  The  Gates  Ajar."  —  The  Congregational  1st  (Boston). 

BEYOND  THE  GATES.  16mo,  $1.25. 

The  effect  of  the  book  is  to  make  this  life  better  worth  living,  and 
the  next  life  better  worth  desiring.  The  author's  conceptions  of 
heaven  are  wholly  pure  and  lofty,  yet  warm  with  human  love  and  in- 
terest. They  touch  the  deepest  yearnings  of  the  soul,  and  serve  to 
strengthen  faith  and  quicken  aspiration.  —  Journal  (Boston). 

Prayers  of  the  Ages. 

PRAYERS    OF   THE    AGES.      Compiled  by   CAROLINE    S. 

WHITMARSH,  one  of  the  editors  of  "  Hymns  of  the  Ages."     12mo, 

$1.50. 

I  have  long  wished  for  something  of  the  kind,  a  broad,  liberal, 
catholic  presentation  of  what  must  be  regarded  as  the  flower  of  the 
world's  piety  and  devotion.  The  "  Hymns  of  the  Ages  "  are  favor- 
ite volumes  with  me,  and  I  have  comforted  the  sick  and  sorrowing 
with  them.  But  this  last  volume,  it  seems  to  me,  I  shall  value  high- 
est.— JOHN  G.  WHITTIER. 


IO  Religious  Publications  of 

George  Putnam,  D.  D. 

SERMONS  BY  GEORGE  PUTNAM,  D.  D.,  late  Pastor  of  the 
First  Religious  Society  in  Roxbury,  Massachusetts.  With  fine 
steel  portrait.  16mo,  gilt  top,  $1.75. 

Rev.  James  Reed. 

SWEDENBORG  AND  THE  NEW  CHURCH.   16mO,  $1.25. 

E.  Reuss. 

HISTORY  OF  THE  SACRED  SCRIPTURES  OF  THE  NEW  TES- 
tament.  By  EDUARD  (WILHELM  EUGEN)  REDSS,  Professor  Ordi- 
narius  in  the  Evangelical  Theological  Faculty  of  the  Emperor 
William's  University,  Strassburg,  Germany.  Translated  with  nu- 
merous Bibliographical  Additions,  by  EDWARD  L.  HOUGHTON,  A.M. 
2  vols.  8vo,  $5.00. 

Edward  Robinson,  D.  D.,  LL.  D. 
HARMONY  OF  THE  FOUR  GOSPELS,  in  Greek.     8vo,  $1.50. 
THE  SAME,  in  English.      12mo,  75  cents. 

BIBLICAL  RESEARCHES  IN  PALESTINE.     3  vols.  8vo,  with 

maps,  $10.00.     Price  of  the  maps  alone,  $1.00. 

Dean  Stanley  said  of  these  volumes:  "  They  are  amongst  the  very 
few  books  of  modern  literature  of  which  I  can  truly  say  that  I  have 
read  every  word.  I  have  read  them  under  circumstances  which  riv- 
eted mv  attention  upon  them  while  riding  on  the  back  of  a  camel ; 
while  traveling  on  horseback  through  the  hills  of  Palestine;  under 
the  shadow  of  my  tent,  when  I  came  in  weary  from  the  day's  journey. 
These  were  the  scenes  in  which  I  first  became  acquainted  with  the 
work  of  Dr.  Robinson.  But  to  that  work  I  have  felt  that  I  and  all 
students  of  Biblical  literature  owe  a  debt  that  can  never  be  effaced." 

PHYSICAL  GEOGRAPHY  OF  THE  HOLY  LAND.     A  Supple- 
ment to  "  Biblical  Researches  in  Palestine."     8vo,  $3.50. 
A  capital  summary  of  our  present  knowledge.  —  London  Athenaeum. 

HEBREW  AND  ENGLISH  LEXICON  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT, 
including  the  Biblical  Chaldee.  From  the  Latin  of  WILLIAM  GE- 
8ENius,  by  EDWARD  ROBINSON.  Twenty-second  Edition.  8vo, 
half  russia,  $6.00. 

ENGLISH-HEBREW  LEXICON:  Being  a  complete  Verbal 
Index  to  Genesius'  Hebrew  Lexicon  as  translated  by  ROBINSON. 
By  JOSEPH  LEWIS  POTTER,  A.  M.  8vo,  $2.00. 

Professor  Josiah  Royce. 
RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.     12mo,  $2.00. 

Rev.  Thomas  Scott. 
THE   BIBLE,  WITH  EXPLANATORY   NOTES,    PRACTICAL 


Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  n 

OBSERVATIONS,    AND    COPIOUS    MARGINAL    REFERENCES.      By 
Rev.  THOMAS  SCOTT.     6  vols.  royal  8vo,  sheep,  $15.00. 
I  believe  it  exhibits  more  of  the  mind  of  the  Spirit  in  the  Scriptures 
than  any  other  work  of  the  kind  extant.  —  Rev.  ANDREW  FULLER. 

J.  C.   Shairp. 
CULTURE  AND  RELIGION  IN  SOME  OF  THEIR  RELATIONS. 

16mo,  gilt  top,  $1.25. 

A.  P.  Sinnett. 

ESOTERIC  BUDDHISM.     With  an  Introduction  prepared  ex- 
pressly for  the  American  edition,  by  the  author.     16mo,  $1.25. 

William  Smith. 

DICTIONARY    OP  THE    BIBLE,  comprising  its  Antiquities, 
Biography,    Geography,    and    Natural    History.      By    WILLIAM 
SMITH.      Edited   by   Professor  HORATIO  BALCH   HACKETT  and 
EZRA  ABBOT,  LL.  D.      In   four  volumes,  8vo,  3667  pages,  with 
596  illustrations.     Cloth,   beveled  edges,  strongly  bound,  $20.00  ; 
full  sheep,  $25.00  ;  half  morocco,  $30.00  ;  half  calf,  extra,  $30.00 ; 
half  russia,  $35.00  ;  full  morocco,  gilt,  $40.00  ;  tree  calf.  $45.00. 
There  are  several  American  editions  of  Smith's  Dictionary  of  the 
Bible,  but  this  edition  comprises  not  only  the  contents  of  the  original 
English  edition,  unabridged,  but  very  considerable   and   important 
additions  by  the  editors,  Professors  Hackett  and  Abbot,  and  twenty- 
six  other  eminent  American  scholars. 

This  edition  has  500  more  pages  than  the  English,  and  100  more 
illustrations ;  more  than  a  thousand  errors  of  reference  in  the  Eng- 
lish edition  are  corrected  in  this  ;  and  an  Index  of  Scripture  Illus- 
trated is  added. 

No  similar  work  in  our  own  or  in  any  other  language  is  for  a  mo- 
ment to  be  compared  with  it. —  Quarterly  Review  (London). 

Robert  South,  D.  D. 

SERMONS  PREACHED  UPON  SEVERAL  OCCASIONS.  With 

a  Memoir  of  the  author.     5  vols.  8vo,  $15.00. 

We  doubt  if,  in  the  single  quality  of  freshness  and  force  of  expres- 
sion, of  rapid  and  rushing  life,  any  writer  of  English  prose,  from 
Milton  to  Burke,  equaled  South.  —  E.  P.  WHIPPLE,  in  North  Ameri- 
can Review. 

Harriet  Beecher  Stowe. 
RELIGIOUS  POEMS.     Illustrated.     16mo,  $1.50. 

Joseph  P.  Thompson,  D.  D. 

AMERICAN  COMMENTS  ON  EUROPEAN  QUESTIONS,  Inter- 
national and  Religious.    8vo,  $3.00. 

Henry  Thornton. 
FAMILY  PRATERS,  AND  PRAYERS  ON  THE  TEN  COMMAND- 


12  Religious  Publications. 

MENTS,  with  a  Commentary  on  the   Sermon  on   the  Mount,  etc. 

By  HENRY  THORNTON.     Edited  by  the  late  Bishop  EASTBURN,  of 

Massachusetts.     12mo,  $1.50. 

Probably  no  published  volume  of  family  prayers  has  ever  been  the 
vehicle  of  so  much  heart-felt  devotion  as  these.  They  are  what 
prayers  should  be  —  fervent,  and  yet  perfectly  simple.  —  Christian 
Witness. 

Professor  C.  P.  Tiele. 

HISTORY  OF  THE  EGYPTIAN  RELIGION.  Translated  from 
the  Dutch,  with  the  cooperation  of  the  author,  by  JAMES  BALLIN- 
GAL.  8vo,  gilt  top,  $3.00. 

Henry  Vaughan. 

See  HERBERT. 

Jones  Very. 

POEMS.      With   a   Memoir   by   WILLIAM    P.   ANDREWS. 

16mo,  gilt  top,  $1.50. 

Poems  unique  in  their  quality  among  American  poetry,  alike  for 
their  spiritual  intensity  and  their  absolute  sincerity.  —  CHARLES 
ELIOT  NORTON. 

E.  M.  Wherry. 

A  COMPREHENSIVE  COMMENTARY  ON  THE  QURAN  :  Com- 
prising Sale's  Translation  and  Preliminary  Discourse,  with  addi- 
tional Notes  and  Emendations.  Together  with  a  complete  Index 
to  the  Text,  Preliminary  Discourse  and  Notes.  2  vols.  8vo,  gilt 
top,  each  $4.50. 

John  G.  Whittier. 

TEXT  AND  VERSE.  Selections  from  the  Bible  and  from 
the  "Writings  of  John  G.  Whittier,  chosen  by  GERTRUDE  W.  CART- 
LAND.  18mo,  75  cents. 

John  Woolman. 

THE  JOURNAL  OP  JOHN  WOOLMAN.  With  an  Introduc- 
tion by  JOHN  G.  WHITTIER.  16mo,  $1.50. 

A  perfect  gem.  He  is  a  beautiful  soul.  An  illiterate  tailor,  he 
writes  in  a  style  of  the  most  exquisite  purity  and  grace.  His  moral 
qualities  are  transferred  to  his  writings.  His  religion  is  love.  His 
Christianity  is  most  inviting :  it  is  fascinating.  —  H.  CRABB  ROBIN- 
SON, in  his  Diary. 

N.  B.  A  Catalogue  of  all  the  publications  of  HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN 
&  Co.,  containing  portraits  of  many  distinguished  authors,  and  a  full  Cat- 
alogue of  their  Religious  Books,  with  critical  notices  and  full  particulars 
in  regard  to  them,  will  be  sent  to  any  address  on  aj>plication. 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO.,  BOSTON,  MASS. 

11  EAST  SEVENTEENTH  STREET,  NEW  YORK. 


